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Biography 
Lorrin A. Thurston 



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WALTER R. STEINER 
COLLECTION 



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REV. SERENO EDWARDS BISHOP 
(Taken in 1902) 



The Advertiser Historical Series 
No. 1 



Reminiscences of Old Hawaii 

by 

Sereno Edwards Bishop 



With a Brief Biography 
By Lorrin A. Thurston 



Hawaiian Gazette Co., Ltd. 
Honolulu, Hawaii, 1916 






1>>' 



ifiiUESTor 

M. WALTER R. S1EIMEH 
JAW, 2% 19«8 



Preface and a Brief Biography of Sereno 

Edwards Bishop 



THERE has recently been a growing demand, both on the part of 
permanent residents of and visitors to Hawaii, for specific informa' 

tion concerning the history of Hawaii, more particularly of the 
period of transition from the ancient feudal system when the King and 
Chiefs had supreme and absolute power of life and death and the com- 
mon people had no rights of person or property, to the era when con- 
stitutional guaranty of protection and the laws of civilization became 
established. 

A comprehensive history of Hawaii has yet to be written. Its 
compilation will involve a vast amount of investigation and study, as 
the material is scattered through governmental and court records, pri- 
vate correspondence and journals, newspapers and magazine articles; 
while many matters, especially regarding the events leading up to an- 
nexation, rest in the personal and unwritten knowledge of leading 
participants. 

Alexander's History, written for public school purposes, the best 
Hawaiian history now available, is necessarily condensed. 

Other books bearing upon various phases of Hawaiian life, were 
issued in limited editions, and moreover, are mostly out of print. 

Under these circumstances, it has been suggested to the writer that 
the best method of meeting the present public desire for information is to 
collect and publish the personal memoirs, reminiscences and writings 
of some of the older residents of Hawaii, who, through observation, 
were able to give first hand evidence of what they saw ; or through 
contact with those living, were able to record the traditions and evidence 
of what had previously transpired. 

Among the most lucid and almost photographic representations of 
the daily life and conditions existing in Hawaii during the interval be- 
tween the arrival of the missionaries, in 1820, and the "Great Re- 
vival," in 1839, are the reminiscences of Rev. Sereno Edwards Bishop, 
written in 1901-2 and published in the Honolulu Friend, while he was 
editor of that journal, and in the Advertiser. These have been recently 
republished in the Sunday Advertiser. 

A number of persons have urged that these papers be preserved in 
book form, in order to give greater future accessibility thereto. 



The publication of books in Hawaii has not heretofore proved 
profitable from a commercial standpoint, as a rule, owing to the limited 
editions for which there is a demand; but the increased book-reading 
constituency in Hawaii appears to justify the venture; while the dis- 
semination of knowledge of what actual conditions were, during "the 
good old days when the natives led the simple life, free from the ills of 
civilization and the greed of land grabbing missionaries" would seem 
to be a duty to the memory of those who devoted their lives to the 
Hawaiian people, and have now passed on. The suggestion of pub- 
lication of Mr. Bishop's Reminiscences in book form has therefore been 
adopted. 

A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF SERENO E. BISHOP. 

In order that a knowledge of the man, his personality and en- 
vironment, as well as of his writings may also be preserved, the fol- 
lowing brief biography of Mr. Bishop has been compiled to accompany 
these Reminiscences. 

The pioneer band of American missionaries to Hawaii, numbered 
seven men, who, with their wives, left Boston October 23, 1819, and 
arrived at Kailua, Hawaii, April 4, 1820, after a voyage around Cape 
Horn of 164 days. 

The second company consisted of six married couples and two single 
persons. They sailed from New Haven, Conn., Nov. 19, 1822, and 
arrived at Honolulu, April 27, 1823, in 158 days. 

Among the second company was Rev. Artemas Bishop, a native of 
Pompey, N. Y., where he was born Oct. 30, 1795. He graduated 
from Union College in 1819 and Princeton Theological Seminary in 
1822. He was married in November, 1822, to Elizabeth Edwards, who 
was born at Marlborough, Mass., June 17, 1796. Mrs. Bishop had been 
a girlhood friend of Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston, who had preceded her to 
Hawaii as a missionary, some four years earlier. 

The Bishops were first permanently stationed at Kailua, Hawaii, in 
1824, being transferred to Ewa, Oahu, in 1836, and to Honolulu in 
1855, where Mr. Bishop died, Dec. 18, 1872. Mrs. Bishop died at 
Kailua, Feb. 28, 1828, the first death in the mission band. She left 
two infant children, one being the subject of this sketch, Sereno Ed- 
wards Bishop, who was born at Kaawaloa, Hawaii, Feb. 7, 1827. 

Mr. Bishop, Sr., subsequently married Delia Stone, who was a mem- 



ber of the third company of missionaries, Dec. 1, 1828. She survived 
her husband, dying at Honolulu, April 13, 1875. 

The life of a "Sandwich Island" Mission boy in the twenties and 
thirties was an abnormal one. 

The mission house was usually in a thickly inhabited village, so that 
the missionary and his wife could be close to their work among the peo- 
ple ; but such were the open indecencies of the surrounding heathen life 
that the mission children were kept cooped up where they could see 
and hear but little of what was going on outside. 

While the life work of the parents was being conducted in the Ha- 
waiian language, for the reason above given the children were not per- 
mitted to learn that language. 

With hundreds of children all about them, they had no playmates 
except the children of other missionaries, most of whom were scattered 
over the Islands, meeting only a few times a year. 

The life of the missionaries, as well as of their wives, was a strenu- 
ous one. There was a foreign language to learn ; a written language to 
create ; the scriptures and other books to translate ; schools to be estab- 
lished and taught; medical attention to be given to a population num- 
bering thousands ; churches to be built and services to be conducted 
therein ; visits to be made to outlying villages (there were only three mis- 
sionaries on the entire west coast of Hawaii) ; admonition to be given 
to backsliders ; the opposition of hostile foreign beach combers to be 
counteracted, and the amenities, decencies and industries of civliza- 
tion to be taught by precept and example to a* people virgin to both. 

There did not seem to be hours enough in a day to accomplish 
what had to be done. The day began at four A. M. with no inter- 
mission until dark, while the evenings were lighted by kukui-nut torches, 
single wick whale oil lamps or home-made tallow candles. 

In the midst of this strenuous life the mission children were not 
suffered to fall below the same standard of activity. The same early 
morning hours found them at their lessons, and, under the tuition of 
their parents, they made such rapid progress that at the age of nine, 
the subject of this sketch had finished arithmetic and progressed into 
algebra; had finished Blake's Natural Physiology; was studying Latin 
and botany; was an adept speller and was taking lessons in drawing. 

Owing to the then lack of advanced schools in Hawaii, the earlier 
mission children were all "sent home" around Cape Horn, to "be edu- 
cated." 



This was the darkest day in the life history of the mission child. 
Peculiarly dependent upon the family life, at the age of eight to twelve 
years, they were suddenly torn from the only intimates they had ever 
known, and banished, lonely and homesick, to a mythical country on the 
other side of the world, where they could receive letters but once or 
twice a year ; where they must remain isolated from friends and relatives 
for years and from which they might never return. 

In accordance with this formula, Sereno Bishop was sent away in 
November, 1839, when only twelve years of age. He graduated from 
Amherst College in 1846 and from Auburn Theological Seminary in 

1851, and was married to Cornelia A. Sessions on May 31, 1852. They 
celebrated their golden wedding in Honolulu in 1902. An item of 
"human interest" in this connection is that the young couple became 
acquainted by meeting at the house of a mutual acquaintance, when Mr. 
Bishop read aloud the installments of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," then ap- 
pearing serially in a New York weeky. 

Young Bishop early decided to be a missionary, and accordingly 
when offered the position of seaman's chaplin at Lahaina, Maui, in 

1852, he immediately accepted and proceeded to his post, via Cape Horn 
and San Francisco, arriving January 16, 1853. On the way out a three 
weeks' stay was made at Rio Janeiro, Brazil, where particular notice 
was taken of the grand avenue of royal palms, from which upon another 
occasion, Dr. Judd carried away a couple of seeds which he subse- 
quently planted at the "Bates" place, now Samuel Baldwin's, on Nuuanu 
street, Honolulu. One grew and still stands. From this one seed have 
come all the royal palms in the Islands. 

To those who know Lahaina but as a sugar plantation town, it may 
be said that it was then the center of shipping activity of the Pacific, 
being the port of call of over 300 American whale ships, besides other 
commercial and national vessels. It also still divided honors with Hono- 
lulu as the seat of government, and was the center of a large popula- 
tion, both native and foreign. It was at Lahaina, only a few years 
before, that the commander of a United States warship forced the repeal 
of a law against vice, by threats of violence, and that five cannon balls 
were fired at the house of the resident missionary, the Rev. William 
Richards, because of his influence with the native government in sup- 
port of laws against immorality. 

The writer's mother, who was born at Lahaina and spent her earlier 



years there, once told him that two of these cannon balls, which fell in 
the Richards' yard, were for years playthings for herself and the other 
mission children. 

The Bishops remained nine years at Lahaina, where five children 
were born to them, two little boys being left in the Lahaina Mission 
church yard. 

With the rise of Honolulu in importance as a seaport, Lahaina 
declined, and in 1862 Mr. Bishop transferred his residence to the iso- 
lated station at Hana, Maui, where for three and a half years he served 
as a missionary of the American Board. The journey had to be made 
overland on horseback, occupying several days, the children being car- 
ried in a canvas "manele," on the shoulders of a couple of stout Ha- 
waiians. The only other whites living in Hana were Mr. and Mrs. 
Wm. Needham and their daughter Hattie. 

In 1865, still in the service of the Board, he became principal of the 
Lahainaluna industrial school, then the only one of high school grade 
available to Hawaiians, in which position he continued until July, 1877. 

The writer well remembers his vigorous and kindly nature at this 
period. He visited our home at Makawao, about 1872, and wishing to 
try out a horse which he contemplated buying, invited me, a fourteen- 
year-old boy, to accompany him home, which I did on a little roan pony 
with a white face and one white eye. There was neither road nor fence 
across the plain, now occupied by the Hawaiian Commercial Planta- 
tion, at Maalaea Bay, and access to Lahaina was' by a steep and rough 
trail over the mountain, rising to an elevation of over a thousand feet. 
We made the distance, some thirty odd miles, in four and a quarter 
hours. Mr. Bishop bought the horse. Incidentally, from Lahaina I 
went to Honolulu by the schooner Nettie Merril, originally a Boston 
pilot boat, departing during a heavy Kona. During the course of em- 
barkation boats were twice capsized in the surf, one containing the cap- 
tain of the schooner, Ezra Crane, father of the present manager of 
The Hawaiian Gazette Co. The captain could not swim and was rescued 
from under the boat by the native crew. 

I have a most vivid memory of the whale boat coasting down the 
huge breaker, suddenly shearing off with terrific speed along the front 
of the wave, into the mounting face of which the steersman and five 
oarsmen instantly and simultaneously dived, the boat being overwhelmed 
with its lone occupant. 

Mr. Bishop remained at Lahainaluna for twelve years, when he re- 



signed, in July, 1877, on account of the strain on his health caused by a 
continuous indoor life. Moreover, the school had theretofore been taught 
exclusively in Hawaiian and it having been decided to change to Eng- 
lish, Mr. Bishop thought it better that the change should be inaugurated 
by some one else. 

While at Lahainaluna, he was one of the first to make the ascent 
to the top of West Maui, Mount Eke, where there is a sheer descent 
into Iao Valley of approximately 3000 feet, and from which he obtained 
a view of all the islands from Hawaii to Oahu. Mr. Bishop was wont 
to say that after visiting all the islands and their most spectaculai 
features, he considered this view from Eke the most wonderful and 
beautiful of all. Mr. Bishop considered that the work which he did 
among the native students at Lahainaluna was among the most fruitful 
of his life. He left his mark at Lahainaluna, physically, in the shape of 
the grand avenue of monkey pods on the road to Lahaina, which he 
personally planted. 

From Lahainaluna Mr. Bishop removed to Honolulu, where he lived 
until his death, March 23rd, 1909. 

As evidence of Mr. Bishop's versatility, he now joined the staff of 
the Hawaiian Government Survey Department, and for four years was 
in its active service, both in the field and office. Among the more im- 
portant work done by him, was the compilation of the first detail map 
of the Island of Kauai, and the mapping of the complicated land titles 
and water rights of Nuuanu Valley, in Honolulu. After this he con- 
tinued independently in the profession for eight years more. 

At this time he bought a : piece of land on Liliha street, laid it out 
into lots and streets, and sold the lots. So far as I know this was the 
first "addition" to the city on recognized modern lines. Kuakini street 
was opened and named by Mr. Bishop at this time; that being the 
name that he was known by among the Hawaiians in his youth, it being 
derived from the Governor of Hawaii, who lived at Kailua when Mr. 
Bishop was a boy there. 

While a vigorous theologian, he was not entirely of the old school. 

For example, he immediately accepted Darwin's theory of evolu- 
tion, at a time when such theory was considered by the religious world 
in general to be rank heresy. Differences in denominational creeds did 
not appeal to him. One of his standard positions was that: "all the 
creed that a Christian needs is 'I love the Lord Jesus Christ.' " 

Mr. Bishop was of an intensely analytical and logical nature, and a 



close student both of soeialogical questions and the laws of nature. 
Geology, more particularly volcanology, especially interested him. 

An amusing incident grew out of an article published by him, in 
1901, dealing with Diamond Head, Punchbowl, and the other tufa 
craters in the vicinity of Honolulu, in which he gave an estimate in 
round numbers of their respective ages. Some time later a ma-li-hi-ni 
asked a ka-ma-ai-na how long ago Diamond Head was an active vol- 
cano. "Just 20,008 years ago," was the prompt reply. 

"How do you arrive at that exact figure?" 

"Why, just eight years ago Sereno Bishop said it was 20,000 years 
old ; therefore, it must now be 20,008 years old." 

In illustration of his breadth of learning and wide information, a 
book canvasser called at the house one day and expatiated upon the 
value of an encyclopedia which he represented. A little grand daughter 
listened to the talk and finally broke in with the remark: "We don't 
need that book. When we want to know anything we ask grandpa." 

In 1887, Mr. Bishop assumed the editorship of the "Friend," a 
monthly journal, founded in Honolulu in 1843, "the oldest publication 
west of the Rocky Mountains." This connection continued until May, 
1902. 

Originally devoted especially to the interests of seamen and the 
advocacy of temperance, the Friend had become, practically, the un- 
official mouth piece and recorder of the Protestant religious life and 
progress of the Islands. Sereno Bishop added to this, vigorous edi- 
torial advocacy of civic righteousness and progress and development in 
social, mercantile and governmental affairs. 

As the conflict developed during the latter eighties and early nine- 
ties, between reactionary tendencies and the progressive element of the 
community, which finally culminated in the overthrow of the monarchy 
and annexation to the United States, Mr. Bishop developed a remark- 
able faculty of analysis of the complicated situation and a powerful, 
virile use of English which carried conviction as to the knowledge of 
the subject and sincerity of the author; the accuracy of his statements 
and the soundness of his conclusions. His contributions were not con- 
fined to the columns of the "Friend," but extended to the local press and 
to magazines on the mainland. He it was who, in an article contributed 
to a mainland magazine, coined the phrase descriptive of Hawaii, since 
universally used, "The Cross Roads of the Pacific." Most import- 



10 

ant of all, he became the correspondent of the Washington, D. C, 
Evening Star, under the name of "Kamehameha." 

The high standing of the Star ; the clear and fearless statements of 
fact and the sledge-hammer logic of the conclusions reached, were in- 
valuable as an educative influence on the American public during the 
interregnum between the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893 and the 
consummation of annexation in 1898, and were a powerful factor in the 
achievement of the final result. 

Mr. Bishop had previously commanded local respect and attention 
as a scientific thinker and writer, but he achieved international fame in 
this respect in 1883. 

Early in September of that year there suddenly began a continued 
series of the most gorgeous and beautiful sunsets and sunrises. The 
most remarkable feature, however, was the "after glow," extending for 
hours after sunset and before sunrise. At Honolulu it did not con- 
tinue so late as in more northern latitudes; but for an hour or more 
after sunset the whole western heavens glowed with the intensity of an 
incandescent electric light, throwing a weird and ghastly reflection 
on the landscape. The writer retains a most vivid recollection of the 
grandeur and strangeness of the scene, in connection with the odd 
circumstances that, being then a member of a baseball team, we were 
able to play ball much later than had previously been the case. 

Another remarkable feature was that throughout the day there were 
halo-like rings possessing a metallic glitter, around the sun. 

The whole world was agog with wonder and inquiry as to the 
cause of the phenomena. There were the usual suggestions of the ap- 
proaching end of the world and endless speculations, but no theory 
which would hold water, until from far Hawaii, over the signature of 
Sereno E. Bishop, appeared an article, illustrated with drawings demon- 
strating the argument, propounding an explanation which was eventually 
unanimously accepted by the scientific world as correct. 

It appeared that on August 26, 1883, one of the most tremendous 
volcanic explosions recorded in history occurred on the Island of Kra- 
katoa, off the coast of Java. Varying estimates were made that, from 
one to twelve cubic miles of material, were blown into fragments, the 
finer dust being projected so high that it reached sufficiently beyond the 
attraction of gravitation to lag behind the revolution of the earth and 
the lower atmosphere, thereby in the course of a few days extending 
around the earth and shortly completely enveloping it. Mr. Bishop 



11 

evolved the theory that the reflection of the sun's rays on these minute 
particles was the cause of all the phenomena, andthe theory was adopted, 
the circles about the sun being named in his honor the "Bishop Rings." 

In 1896 his alma mater, Amherst College, conferred upon him the 
degree of Doctor of Divinity, in recognition of his literary and scientific 
attainments. 

Sereno E. Bishop was one of those of whom it is true, that "the 
world is wiser and better by reason of his having lived in it." 

Lorrin A. Thurston. 

Honolulu, Sept. 30, 1916. 



Memories of Kailua 



THE writer was born near Kailua, and passed his first nine years there, until 
removal to Ewa in 1836. Life in an early missionary's home was pecu- 
liar. Eecollections of it will no doubt interest many persons. 
In the early thirties, Kailua was a large native village, of about 4000 in- 
habitants rather closely packed along one hundred rods of shore, and averaging 
twenty rods inland. It had been the chief residence of King Kamehameha, 
who in 1819 died there in a rudely built stone house whose walls are probably 
still standing on the west shore of the little bay. Near by stood a better stone 
house occupied by the doughty Governor Kuakini. All other buildings in Kailua 
were thatched, until Eev. Artemas Bishop built his two- story stone dwelling in 
1831 and Eev. Asa Thurston in 1833 built his wooden two-story house at Lania- 
kea, a quarter of a mile inland. Many of the native cottages were commodious 
and neat inside, belonging to natives of more or less rank. But the great 
majority were small, and betokened, great poverty, both outside and within. 
There was an immense church on the same ground where now stands the old 
stone church. This was erected by Governor Kuakini about 1828. It was a 
wholly native structure, framed with immense timbers cut and dragged from 
the great interior forest by Kuakini superintending his subjects in person. The 
thatch was of the very durable la-i or ti leaf. Most of the native huts were 
thatched with the stiff pili grass. The better ones were thatched with lau-hala 
(pandanus leaf) or with la-i. 

KAILUA IN THE TWENTIES. 

Kailua was the capital of the Island. It is situated on the west coast, 
twelve miles north of Kealakekua, where Captain Cook perished. It lies at the 
base of the great mountain Hualalai, 8275 feet high. The entire coast consists 
of lava flows from that mountain, of greater or less age. Here and there in 
the village were small tracts of soil on the lava, where grew a few cocoanut, 
kou, and pandanus trees. There were no gardens, for lack of water. Heat 
and general aridity characterized the place. But it pleased the natives, on 
account of the broad calm ocean, the excellent fishing, and the splendid rollers 
of surf on which they played and slid all day. 

North of the town, the whole region seemed to be occupied by an ocean of 
black billowy lava which at some recent period had flowed down from the 
mountain. This bounded that end of the village. A vast breadth of this lava- 
sea had invaded the ocean for miles, beyond the older shore line of Kailua. A 
wide tongue of lava had bent around and partially enclosed the little cove with 
its deep sand beach where was the chief landing of the town. 

SURVIVAL OP IDOL WORSHIP. 
On this lava breadth, back of Kamehameha 's house, was a heiau, or temple- 
platform of stone, where were standing five tall wooden idols. We used occa- 
sionally to go there and look at their huge shark-mouths and other grotesque- 
ness. I suppose that out of respect to the deceased Conqueror, these gods of his 
had been permitted to survive the general destruction of the idols of Hawaii. 
No doubt the fear of them was still strong in the minds of the people. I never 



13 

heard what finally became of them, but have heard that after we left Kailua, 
Governor Kuakini suffered a relapse into idol-worship, and that Father Thurston 
descended upon the formidable old chief, and berated him with such severity that, 
he submitted and repented. I well remember the tremendous governor. He was 
an enormous man of great stature, and proportioned like Mr. Paul Isenberg, Jr. 
His weight was estimated at 500 pounds. I used to see him mounted on a strong 
li calico' ' horse whose back bent under his weight, and which seemed to trot with 
difficulty. All the natives, high and low, stood in great awe of him, and crouched 
abjectly in his presence, crawling on hands and knees. Kuakini paid us occa- 
sional visits, occupying a very broad arm chair my father had made. He used to 
take some notice of the small boy, whom many of the natives called after his 
name. But his calls were long and tedious, if infrequent. His wife, Keoua, was 
like himself, a royal chief of highest rank, and not quite equally ponderous. I 
remember seeing the princely pair lolling on their own pile of rich Niihau mats, 
with many attendants busily kneading their bodies and limbs (lomi-lomi). Ages 
of nourishing diet and massage for digestion had bred a royal Hawaiian race of 
immense stature and girth. 

APPEARANCE OP CHIEFS AND PEOPLE. 

The relative rank of other natives could be approximately estimated by 
their stature and corpulence. There were quite a number of large fat men 
and women of some rank among our neighbors. The leading women met weekly 
at our house, most of them wearing the lei-pa-laoa, consisting of a thick bunch 
of finely plaited hair passed through a large hole in a hooked polished piece of 
whale-tooth, and tied around the neck, forming an insignium of rank. They also 
carried small kahilis to brush away the flies. Any chief of high rank was 
attended by one or more fly-brushers, by a spittoon-bearer, and other personal 
attendants. The spittoon holder was the most honored, being responsible to let 
none of the spittle fall into the possession of an evil-minded sorcerer, who might 
compass the death of the Alii therewith. Broad, elastic cocoanut leaf fans were 
in constant play. 

Hawking and spitting were continued in any gathering of natives, and were 
apt seriously to disturb public worship at church. 

But the great crowd of the common people were miserably lean, and often 
very squalid in appearance. They were too much in the sea to appear filthy, 
although the heads of both high and low were thoroughly infested. It was a 
daily spectacle to see them picking over each other's heads for dainties. Their 
vicinity rendered necessary the frequent use of a fine-toothed comb on us chil- 
dren, much to our discomfort. But I believe our ancestors at no remote period 
were little better off. 

SOURCE OF FOOD SUPPLY. 

The people had ample cultivable land in the moist upland from two to four 
miles inland at altitudes of one thousand to twenty-five hundred feet. It is a 
peculiarity of that Kona coast that while the shore may be absolutely rainless 
for months gentle showers fall daily upon the mountain slope. The prevailing 
trade-winds are totally obstructed by the three great mountain domes and never 
reach Kona. There are only the sweet land breeze by night, and the cooling 



14 

sea-breeze by day. The latter comes in, loaded with, the evaporations of the sea, 
and floats high up the mountain slopes. As it rises, the rarification of the air 
precipitates more and more of its burden of vapor, so that at two thousand 
and three thousand feet, there are daily copious rains, and verdure is luxuriant. 
The contrast is immense and delicious between the arid heat of the shore, and 
the moist cool greenness of the near-by upland. The soil is most fertile, being 
formed from the decay of recent lava flows. There the natives found their chief 
means of subsistence, and, in good seasons, were sufficiently fed. In bad seasons 
there were drought, and more or less of "wi, " or famine. The uala or sweet 
potatoes, and the taro, which constituted their chief food grew best on the lower 
and warmer ground, where was more liability to drought. 

CAUSES OF DESTITUTION. 

The chief causes of destitution were the ceaseless oppression of the chiefs, 
and the attendant shiftlessness of the people. No one owned his land, and 
occupied it solely at the will or caprice of his chief, who might and often did 
without notice deprive him of the products of his toil, and even of the land 
itself. The village was much infested by miserably lean pigs, whose scant food 
came by scavengering. Occasionally a pig was fattened in a pen. But the eye 
of the chief's retainer was usually upon any such pigs, and it was likely to be 
snatched away, even after being cooked. No one dared to remonstrate. Hence 
the village was a place of great and squalid poverty. No man or woman could 
earn the smallest coin. No money was in circulation. The women very com- 
monly plaited mats of lau-hala, and there was much beating of tapa, or bark- 
cloth. It is a dreary memory of childhood, that dismal resonance of the tapa- 
mallets all around the village. 

STYLES OF CLOTHING. 

The common multitude wore no foreign cloth. Their few garments were 
wholly of tapa. The younger women were rarely seen uncovered beyond decency, 
although old crones went about with the pa-u only. The smaller children had 
nothing on. The men always wore the half-decent malo, and nothing more. 
At meetings, they wore the little kihei, or shoulder cape. Before 1836, simple 
cotton shirts would not unfrequently be seen in the church. I never saw but 
two Hawaiians wearing trousers in Kailua. One was Kuakini and the other 
Thomas Hopu, from the Cornwall School, who came out with Bingham and 
Thurston. The national female costume was the pa-u, which was worn by all 
at all times. It was a yard wide strip of bark-cloth wound quite tightly around 
the hips reaching from the waist to the knees, and secured at the waist by 
folding over the edges. Foreign cloth was also used. At one great ceremonial, 
a queen had her body rolled up in a pa-u of one hundred yards of rich satin. 

SOURCES OF DRINKING- WATER. 

The drinking water of the people was very brackish, from numerous caves 
which reached below the sea level. The white people, and some chiefs had 
their water from up the mountain where were numerous depressions in the lava, 
full of clear, sweet rain water. There were also many tunnel-eaves, the ehan- 



15 

nels of former lava- streams. The air from the sea, penetrating these chill 
caverns, deposited its moisture, and much distilled water filled the holes in the 
floor. Sometimes the fine rootlets of ohia-trees penetrating from above, festooned' 
the ceilings of these dark lava-ducts as with immense spider webs. If in a dry 
season, water was lacking on the open ground, it could always be found higher up 
on the mountain in such caves. Twice a week one of our ohuas or native 
dependants went up the mountain with two huewai, or calabash bottles, sus- 
pended by nets from the ends of his mamaki or yoke, similar to those used by 
Chinese vegetable venders. These he filled with sweet water and brought home, 
having first covered the bottles with fresh ferns, to attest his having been well 
inland. The contents of the two bottles filled a five-gallon demijohn twice a 
week. 

DOMESTIC ECONOMY OF THE MISSIONARIES. 

For cooking and cleaning purposes, the brackish water sufficed. I liked it 
for drink as a child, although it later became revolting. Our people took our 
clothes up the mountain to be washed. The wealth of clothing hung out on the 
lines was a wonder to the people, who had none. On one day when my father 
was about to sail to Honolulu, his six new shirts hung out on the line together. 
A great amazement pervaded the minds of the villagers at the incredible 
opulence of their spiritual father, and the premises were surrounded with crowds 
to gaze at the marvel. Our house occupied about an acre of land, half of it in 
yards for our native ohuas, and for domestic animals, cows, pigs, and poultry. 
The other half where the children played was surrounded by a high wall topped 
by a projecting paling to bar out native intruders. Four men and their wives 
constituted our force of servants. For wages they received their living. We 
had a block of land up the mountain where the men cultivated food for us and 
themselves. I believe it is the same land now owned by Miss Baird, as reported 
in October Friend. We had up there flourishing orange trees and grape vines, 
and were well supplied with taro, sweet potatoes, bananas and sugar cane. Very 
oddly we had not learned to cook bananas. 

STATUS OF SERVANTS OF THE MISSION. 

The position of house-servants to missionaries was one greatly coveted by 
the natives, who were miserably poor. They were exempt from the grinding 
oppressions of the chiefs and their retainers. They always had abundance to 
eat and wear, and were people of importance in the community. My personal 
nurse in infant years was Maunalua, the wife of our very capable and energetic 
cook Kalaikini. They left us in 1832 to be schooled at the new Lahainaluna 
Seminary. Kalaikini had great business capacity, and became an excellent 
mason and builder in Lahaina. Under my father's guardianship, most of his 
numerous children had survived, and a large family grew up. The like was 
the case with a majority of the old native servants of the missionaries, while 
most of the children of other natives died in infancy through mismanagement. 
A grand-daughter of Kalaikini is now a millionaire of much social position, and 
wide travel. 



16 



THE MISSION FOOD SUPPLY. 



At one time, in the twenties, the two mission families at Kailua had a 
severe experience of famine with the people, and were unable to procure the 
ordinary food. It was a blessed God-send when rain came, and a plentiful crop 
of wild mustard sprang up, furnishing abundance of boiled greens. I think we 
always had enough food to eat, such as sweet potatoes, taro, poi, goat's milk, 
bananas, sugar cane, fresh pork, chickens, turkeys and fish. Irish potatoes we 
never saw, nor beef except salted, procured from whalers. Wild cattle abounded 
on Mauna Kea, on the other side of the island. "We and the Thurstons each kept 
a few cows which grazed on the sparse herbage of the lower slope. They were 
from the wild stock introduced from California by Vancouver, and yielded little 
milk, which was reserved for butter. A good flock of goats gave a good supply 
of milk for the table, and the kids were delicious eating. My step mother was 
a good cook, and we often had puddings of rice and of pia, or arrow-root, which 
was an abundant wild product of this country. 

CONDITION OF FLOUR. 

Eice came from China, generally becoming very weevly. Our scanty sup- 
plies of flour came from Boston, ordered by our fiscal agent, Mr. Levi Cham- 
berlain. Coming around Cape Horn, before the art of kiln-drying had been 
learned, it was commonly mouldy, and full of large white worms. After 
careful sifting, the good lady would proceed to incorporate into the flour an 
equal bulk of boiled sweet potato thoroughly rubbed in, so as seldom to betray 
its presence. The bread was fairly light, and far better than no bread, though 
we children got little of it, and no butter at all. Mrs. Thurston's bread used to 
be much darker. I think she worked poi into it. Sour milk was abundant and 
helped, with salaeratus, to make the bread light. Mr. Chamberlain allowanced 
each mission family one barrel of flour per annum. I remember witnessing 
my father and Mr. Thurston in the act of dividing a barrel of flour, which may 
have been an extra bonus. They sawed it in half. The inside was solidly caked, 
mouldy for two inches in, and thoroughly wormy. It was all eaten except for 
the mouldy exterior. 

LITERARY AND MEDICAL WORK OF THE MISSIONARIES. 

Messrs. Thurston and Bishop both enjoyed vigorous health, and labored 
hard in their calling. What we children saw was for one thing their daily toil 
at their tables in translating the Scriptures from the original Greek and Hebrew 
into the Hawaiian vernacular, their manuscripts being forwarded for revision 
after mutual comparison, to Mr. Eichards at Lahaina, or Mr. Bingham at 
Honolulu. There was also much preparation of school books and of hymns. 
These studies, however, were constantly interrupted by calls from natives at 
all hours, very commonly for medicine. Mr. Bishop, being centrally located, had 
most of this work. He had shelves full of medicine bottles, also a chest of 
drugs which, when opened, dispensed a sickening odor of aloes. A prominent drug 
was red precipitate of mercury, which he used to dust upon the fearful syphilitic 
ulcers which disfigured so many of the people's limbs and faces. Salts, blue- 




REV. ARTEMAS BISHOP 
Missionary to Hawaii; father of Sereno E. Bishop 



17 

pill and calomel were leading drugs which I heard much of. Blood-letting was 
a constant remedy in which Father Bishop was an adept. Binding the arm, 
he would prick the lancet into the swollen vein, and the dark blood would spurt 
three feet into the basin held to receive it. That is obsolete practice, yet he un- 
doubtedly relieved much misery, and saved many lives, for the people confided 
in him, and could not be frightened by their kahunas from seeking his minis- 
tration, although multitudes of them perished by the malpractice of these 
sorcerers. 

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

Both these missionaries, in addition to the regular Sabbath and week-day 
services of the town, alternately held similar services in the villages within 
six miles each way, going by canoe, or often on foot, having no horse until 
1835. They also did an arduous labor in superintending the very inefficient work 
of the native teachers in the schools of the region. Every few months was held 
in the great church a grand field-day, called Hoike, or exhibition, when all the 
pupils of the schools in the district assembled, and displayed their acquirements. 
We children thought these high times, when platoons of gaily- rigged women and 
half-naked men would stalk to the front and pronounce the lessons prepared. 
Sometimes they would be commended, but occasionally a stern rebuke would be 
administered to the teacher. These performances would often last all day, and 
the attending crowds never seemed to weary. Great progress was made in 
those schools, through much and long toil which has culminated in the present 
universal literacy of the Hawaiian people. 

THE MISSION HOME IN 1831. 

My earliest memory of our home was that of two thatched cottages, set 
closely side by side, and raised upon a low stone platform. One was thatched 
with la-i, the other with pili-grass. On my fourth birthday, in February, 1831, 
my father led me a few rods inland to see the stone house he was building. 
I remember the awe with which I gazed into the gloomy depths of the still 
open cellar. A Mr. Castle was the carpenter. Most of the lumber used was 
koa, from the forest inland. The floors were of wide boards, sawed by hand, 
under Mr. Castle's superintendence. He afterwards made shingles for the 
house out of the same timber, although it was at first thatched with la-i. The 
shingled roof yielded a supply of rain-water in the rainy season. The house 
was well built and commodious, with three rooms in each story, and verandahs on 
the seaward side. There was also an ell inland containing the dining-room 
and kitchen. In the kitchen was a brick oven, also an old iron stove of 
antiquated form. In the fireplace were the usual equipments of crane and 
pendent hooks for kettles. 

SURF-RIDING AT KAILUA. 

Dr. Andrews succeeded us in 1837 in the occupancy of the house. In 1838, 
his son was born there, Dr. Geo. P. Andrews, now of Honolulu. Of the five 
years spent in this house I have vivid and many pleasant recollections. From 



18 

the upper verandah, my older sister and myself often watched the active 
gambols of the crowd of natives sliding on the great rollers of the surf, which 
we could see through the stems of a grove of cocoanut trees. That now nearly 
forgotten sport was then in its fullest activity. In the absence of horses, eques- 
trian sport had not displaced it. Each one swam out with the light surf board 
under the arm, diving under the incoming combing rollers. Beaching the point 
where the waves began to comb over they adjusted themselves adroitly on the 
front of the wave in a prostrate position on the board. With a few rapid 
strokes of the hands and feet, they were in motion, and the wave itself did the 
rest, shooting them forward. The sea spurted in front of the darting board, 
while the surf foamed over them behind as they slid down the deep hill of the 
wave, which ever came pushing up under them. It required great skill to main- 
tain the precise position on the slope of the wave, which was necessary, and 
sometimes a less practiced one would be overtaken by the comber and left 
behind. But a majority of the performers were able to kneel on their boards, 
and many of them to stand erect after getting started. 

SURFING AND CANOES. 

This was a universal sport of the chiefs and common people alike. The 
ponderous chiefs had very large boards of light wood. In the Bishop Museum 
may be seen today an immense surf board of the cork-like wili-wili wood, on 
which the famous Paki used to disport himself at Lahaina fifty years ago. I 
doubt whether Kuakini, with his 500 pounds, was agile enough to attempt it. 
In handling canoes the natives were most adroit. Kona, with its great koa 
forests inland abounded in canoes. There were no boats. The people were 
skilled fishermen and often went many miles to sea, in pursuit of the larger 
deep-sea fish. A name given to Mt. Hualalai behind us, was ' ' Kilo-waa, ' ' or 
Canoe-descrier. The canoes were of elaborate form and smoothness. Most of 
them were single canoes with outriggers. Many large ones, however, were 
rigged double, six or eight feet apart, with a high platform between them. 
All the fastenings were of carefully plaited sinnet or cocoanut fiber, the lash- 
ings being laid with great care and skill. The mast was stepped in the platform. 
The common people had mat sails. Those of Kuakini 's canoes were of sail-duck. 

THE THURSTON HOME. 

I think it was a year later than ours, that Mr. Thurston built his wooden 
house at Laniakea, a quarter mile inland and perhaps 150 feet higher. It was 
a very rocky, arid site. The walled enclosures must have occupied two acres. 
A little back in the premises was a lofty pile of clinker stones, which may have 
been natural, or perhaps a heiau or place of idol-worship. Around the base of 
this pile on the barren rocks grew a number of the singular pilo-pilo plants 
very luxuriant. They have large plumy flowers which emitted a strong odor 
like prussic acid. The fleshy legume was on the end of the long pistil, and 
could be pickled as a caper. During the shorter moist season, the common weeds 
of the place were mustard, and a thorny poppy with a large white flower. 
This was probably introduced from Mexico with cattle. Purslane abounded. A 



19 



common weed in Kailua was the no-hu, which we bare-footed children held in 
dread on account of its large seeds with four sharp prongs, one of which was 
always in a vertical position. The bright yellow flower was a very pretty one; 
we called them daisies, and the running plants briars. 

Just back of the Thurston house was a deep pit, which was the mouth of 
an immense cave extending to the shore, ending in a pond of brackish water 
at sea-level. We occasionally joined a party of visitors in exploration of this 
cave with lamps. There were one or two difficult passages, and one lofty cham- 
ber, with a small opening above, admitting a glimpse of light. There were 
many stalactites and stalagmites of small dimensions. From the mouth of the 
cave a continuation extended inland, but the entrance of this was blocked by 
debris. I remember a visit from a shipmaster and his wife who started to 
explore the cave. The lady came on with us, but the brave captain, who would 
coolly rush his boat on a whale, dared not push into the dread darkness, and 
retreated. I think Mrs. Thurston kept her milk pans on the cool mouth of 
the cave. 

THE MISSION DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 

There was a large cow pen, of great interest to us children, with its calves, 
and the well made frames to hold the necks of the cows while milked. Their 
legs were tied to stancheons to prevent kicking, and then the indispensable calf 
was applied to induce the cow to give down her milk. Two quarts per cow was 
considered a large yield. They were from the wild, long-horned Mexican breed, 
which can be handled only with the lasso and heavy whip. 

A very large black boar in a pen was also an object of interest and much 
fear. He may have been of some improved breed. Most of the native pigs were 
of the razor-back species, with immense heads and bristling spines. Their do^, 
which were their meat as well as pigs, were of small size with upright ears & I 
never saw, except in a picture, a dog with drooping ears until perhaps ten 
years old. Cats we kept in plenty. An old black puss was a beloved pet who 
after a protracted absence, when we reached home came running and jumped 
all over us. Not long after she mysteriously disappeared. The Thurston cats 
were yellow. 

On the road between our house and the Thurstons' was the goat-pen used 
by both families. It contained a large flock, which were driven down to it 
every afternoon to be milked. The gambols of the kids were entertaining In 
milking, the goat was laid down on her side. A little to the north of the road 
was a well some sixty feet deep, which the missionaries had dug through the 
lava many years before, but the water found was brackish. Nearer the shore the 
road led past some caves, or rather lava-bubbles, which were of sufficient area to 
form convenient places for beating tapa. The mallets were generally ham- 
mering away. J 

LIFE OP THE MISSION CHILDREN. 

I have delightful recollections of our intercourse with the Thurston chil- 
dren. There were three, Persis, Lucy and Asa. Later were born Mary and 



20 

Thomas. Persis is the only survivor, now the venerable Mrs. Taylor in her 
eightieth year, who has had great experience of social and religious activity. 
Lucy was a girl of the sweetest amiability who died in New York City, February 
24, 1841. Asa was nearly my own age, a boy of great activity and a pleasant 
playmate. After graduating from Williams College he married in Honolulu 
and left one son, the distinguished Lorrin A. Thurston. Both of the families 
were under very careful and systematic discipline. Once a week on Wednes- 
days was a holiday afternoon when the five children played at each house on 
alternate weeks, and at 5 o'clock attended a half -hour's English prayer meeting, 
after our elders had been to the native prayer-meetings. The religious instruc- 
tion at both houses was very thorough; we were all very familiar with the 
bible and a great deal of religious exhortation was addressed to us, perhaps not 
wholly adapted to our tender minds. Our parents deligently did their duty 
according to their old-fashioned Calvinistic lights. 

CHILDREN DID NOT LEARN HAWAIIAN. 

We children were not permitted to learn any of the native tongue until 
later years. The reason of this was to prevent mental contamination. There 
was no reserve whatever upon any subject in the presence of children in the 
social and domestic conversation of the native people. The vilest topics were 
freely discussed in their presence and the children grew up in an atmosphere 
of the grossest impurity. The same strict tabu was enforced in nearly all the 
mission families. It grew out of very unhappy experiences in the families of 
the early missionaries in the Society Islands, a visiting deputation from whom 
had earnestly exhorted our younger missionaries strictly to keep their children 
apart from the natives. I remember that when I first attended a public school in 
"Rochester at the age of thirteen, I was confounded by the prevalent grossness of 
speech among the boys, when by ourselves, although they never talked so before 
the other sex. 

LITERARY INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

An exceptional feature of the family life was the diligent early literary in- 
struction of the children. Both of the mothers were able teachers, although Mrs. 
Thurston was disabled by maternity and some serious ill health from engaging 
actively, as Mrs. Bishop did, in teaching the native schools. The children of 
the latter were thoroughly taught. There was some concert between the two 
families, and a degree of rivalry. Before leaving Kailua at the age of nine, I 
had been carried with the other four children through all the arithmetic I ever 
learned and into elementary algebra. We had also all gone through Blake's 
Natural Philosophy, a very good elementary book on physics, for which I had 
an especial turn. We had made some progress in easy Latin. My sister and 
myself in the old-fashioned way, had "passed" through the whole of Pollok's 
"Course of Time." We were all adepts in spelling. There was some botany 
and some exercise in drawing. Altogether it was quite a little university. 
Books were scarce, and were daily exchanged between the two families. Asa 
brought down the package of books from the hill and I trotted back with them. 



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S. E. BISHOP IN 1851 
(From a Daguerreotype) 



CORNELIA A. SESSIONS IN 1851, 

MARRIED S. E. BISHOP IN 1852. 

(Prom a Daguerreotype) 



21 

STUDYING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 

Our mother always went to her large native school at 9 a. m., and finished 
teaching her own children before that hour. Latterly we had to rise at four 
o'clock, and work an hour with slate and pencil on the arithmetical problems 
of "Colburn's Sequel/ ' in which we delighted. We had one tin whale-oil lamp 
between us, with a single wick. Both of us became near-sighted, but otherwise 
had sound eyes. Soon after five we had breakfast. Our stepmother was a 
notable worker. Before four o'clock her voice would be heard calling, "Mr. B., 
I think it's past four. Look at your watch!" Mr. B. would open his tinder- 
box, seize steel and flint, deftly strike a light, and perhaps pronounce it half- 
past three. He himself rose at five. I saw my first "lucifer" matches in 1838. 
Mr. B. split and dipped his own sulphur matches, and burnt his own tinder. 
The natives produced fire by swiftly rubbing a hard pointed stick into a groove 
in soft dry wood. They also used an old file with a gun flint. 

For some reason I was once sent up the hill with the books at an unusual 
hour before daylight. I found the three Thurstons at their lessons, seated at a 
table built around a post in the center of the sitting room. They were using 
a tallow candle, which was a novelty to me. Each one was enveloped in a large 
tapa, after the manner of the natives in cool weather. Tapa, like newspaper, 
was a good defense against cold, whether as blanket or wrapper. Its defect was 
inability to resist moisture. We had few toys. There were cask-hoops to 
drive with a stick, small kites, also little bows and arrows. We had jack 
knives and learned to whittle. My knife I was prone to lose. 

SUNDAY REGIME. 

Sunday was a very solemn day. We were all rigged in our best, and went 
to church at 9 a. m. There was Sunday school for an hour. During the last few 
months at Kailua, I was promoted to the function of teaching a class of natives, 
to the extent of hearing them each recite a number of verses which they had 
memorized. There was always a large congregation in the immense church. 
Knowing no Hawaiian, we white children came provided with books which we 
diligently read during the sermon. Mr. Thurston and Mr. Bishop did duty in 
Kailua on alternate Sabbaths, the other one walking to out-stations a few miles 
distant. On the quarterly Communion Sabbaths they officiated together, when 
there were usually a large number of natives baptized. These were great occa- 
sions. I well remember the impressive appearance of the two stalwart mis- 
sionaries walking together in their black gowns and white " bands." 

DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF KAILUA CHURCH. 

During our absence at general meeting in Honolulu in 1835, the great church 
was burned by some incendiary, and the services were then conducted in a 
large canoe-shed of the Governor, which was vacated for the purpose. There 
must have been something of a revival of religion at that time, as an unusual 
number of people were baptized, and some of them were weeping. Some young 
missionaries had recently arrived, fresh from Finney's great revivals, among 
them Titus Coan and Lowell Smith, and had imparted the flame to their older 
brethren. The energetic Kuakini immediately set about building the great 



! 22 , 

stone church now standing on the site of the old one. We did not remain at 
Kailua to see it completed. I remember that the corners were built up with 
large square blocks of pahoehoe lava, which were transported by the pople from 
some heiau at a distance. They were smoothly hewn, evidently with great labor. 

REVIVAL OF HEATHENISM BY KALAKAUA. 

I regret to record that about in 1886, King Kalakaua held a grand political 
meeting in that church, and caused his henchman orator, Kaunamano, to proclaim 
that while the worship of Jehovah was proper, Hawaiians must not neglect the 
worship of the lesser gods, who were so much nearer, and exerted so much power 
over their lives. This was done in order to promote sorcery and bring the nation 
into political subjection to the king himself as the chief sorcerer. He had in fact 
made himself a god, and taught the people to pay him divine honors. The sacri- 
lege of that idolatrous proclamation at Kailua was the greater in that the spot 
was the one where the first proclamation of Christ in Hawaii had been made in 
1820 by Bingham and Thurston. 

VISITS TO KAAWALOA. 

Our nearest missionary neighbors outside of the town of Kailua were the 
Euggleses, who lived at Kaawaloa, twelve miles south. Their dwelling was at 
Kuapehu, two miles up the mountain, a most verdant and attractive spot. It 
later became the residence of Eev. John D. Paris. Kaawaloa proper was a vil- 
lage on the north side of Kealakekua Bay. I was born there at the house of 
Mr. and Mrs. Ely, only a few rods from the rock where Captain Cook was 
slain and where his monument now stands. We often visited Kaawaloa, prob- 
ably twice a year, going by water in a double canoe, generally starting two or 
three hours before daylight, so as to carry the land breeze a good part of the 
way. There were a number of paddlers in each of the two canoes, who would 
make the long craft fly swiftly through the sea. The steersman in the stern 
would give the signal by a slap of his paddle against the canoe, and all the 
rowers would shift their paddles in unison from one side to the other. 

We children generally laid upon the raised platform with the mother, though 
sometimes in the bottom of a canoe. We were apt to be seasick, and then 
go to sleep, sometimes awaking to see the waves dashing on a coast of black 
lava cliffs. We would run up the little bay and step ashore upon Cooke's rock, 
whence it was only a few rods to the nice premises of the good Princess Kapio- 
lani. These were prettily thatched cottages on a platform of white masonry 
which was studded with black pebbles. Kapiolani's quarters were neatly fur- 
nished within. She was generally there to receive us with the most cordial 
hospitality. Immediately behind the house was a precipice perhaps two hun- 
dred feet high. This seems to have been caused by a former breaking off of the 
coast line for many miles. Great lava flows had subsequently poured over the 
precipice to the north and south, so as to enclose the bay, leaving half a mile 
of the precipice at the head of the bay untouched. 



23 

THE RUGGLES FAMILY AND HOME. 

The next thing was to surmount the formidable pali. There were plenty 
of natives to carry up the lady and children in. the lack of animals. From the 
summit, two miles of slope brought us to the delightful home of the Euggleses, 
where we were again lovingly welcomed. Mrs. Euggles was a tall, sweet-faced 
woman of kindliest character. Mr. Euggles was a pleasant man of small stat- 
ure, who was often absent from home touring among the natives, his health 
requiring such activity. There was a luxuriant garden, with luscious grapes and 
figs and coffee trees in fruit. There were also orange trees, and in the vicinity 
many old ohia trees with the ripe apples bestudding their gnarled trunks. The 
mission dwelling was a large thatched house, with several glass windows. A 
matter of special delight was the company of two very agreeable children of 
our own ages, named Huldah and Samuel, of whom we were always very fond. 

HOW FAST DAYS WERE KEPT. 

The Euggles family returned to America about 1834, and we saw no more 
of them. Mr. Euggles had done good service as a teacher and preacher for 
fourteen years. Their places were taken by Mr. and Mrs. Cochran Forbes, 
four of whose grandchildren now reside in Honolulu. Mr. Forbes was a forceful 
and zealous missionary. There are memories of pleasant visits with them also, 
both at Kuapehu and at Kailua. On one occasion a fast day is remembered, 
such as we observed at Kailua four times a year by omitting the noon meal. 
The Forbes were more rigid, and no breakfast was served. Discovering this, 
Mrs. Bishop made for the safe, and seizing some cold chicken and taro, enabled 
her hungry family to break their fast. She was always to be relied on in the 
commissariat. 

VISIT TO WAIMEA IN 1832. 

We once extended our visiting to the inland elevated station of Waimea, 
in the beginning of 1832, Mr. Bishop being delegated to initiate Eev. Dwight 
Baldwin, M. D., in his new field. We traveled to Kawaihae by canoe, meeting 
the Baldwins at the house of Mr. John Young, the aged lieutenant of Kame- 
hameha. The ladies and children were carried up the hill for ten miles by 
natives in maneles. I particularly recollect the feeble appearance of Mrs. 
Baldwin with her young babe as her bearers passed us on the road. In due 
time we reached the Waimea plateau, at that time covered with dense scrub 
forest for some miles west of the mission station. We found two good- sized 
cottages, of which each family took possession. There must have been some 
hardship from lack of crockery and furniture. We had an old iron stove which 
helped keep us warm in the cold, rainy mountain winter. There was also a 
large fire occasionally lighted in the center of the main room, whence the smoke 
must have escaped through the roof. I think we children quite enjoyed the 
novel experiences. The Baldwins, being new-comers, must have found it very 
hard. On one occasion the two missionaries were absent for several days on a 
visit to the people of Kohala. That must have been a dreary time for the 
young wife. 



24 

RECOLLECTIONS OF WAIMEA AND OF MR. LYONS. 

For the Bishops, the coolness brought recuperation and health after the 
heat of Kailua. On one morning we were told that ll frost' ' had been seen on 
the grass just before sunrise. With snow mantling Mauna Kea nearly to its 
base on the Waimea plain as it sometimes did, a strong southerly breeze might 
have chilled our locality to that degree. We burned a good deal of wood, mostly 
the yellow ahakea, or "false sandalwood, ' ' which emitted a pleasant odor. Our 
altitude was nearly 2700 feet. Several rounded, green hills lay to the north of 

us, which must have been tuff-cones, the relics of former explosive eruptions. 
We made another visit to Waimea in 1836, shortly before removing to 
Oahu. The Bev. Lorenzo Lyons was then occupying the station, having been 
there over three years. The infant Curtis was running about the house. This 
was a building of thatch, but with a foreign style of frame, with four rooms. 

JOHN YOUNG AND HIS FAMILY. 

On the route, at Kawaihae, we had again enjoyed the hospitality of the 
aged Mr. Young, who is very bald. I remember several fine-looking young 
women, his daughters. A coffin was suspended under the ridge of the house. 
It was the old chief's habit, whenever he went to Honolulu, to provide him- 
self with a new coffin, in order to be so far in readiness for the change which 
was approaching. I trust that he was otherwise not unprepared. A still con- 
spicuous object at Kawaihae was the great Heiau of Puukohala, built by Kame- 
hameha in 1791, and consecrated to his war-god by the sacrifice therein of the 
corpse of his rival, Keoua. John Young had been captured in 1790. Vancouver 
first came two years later, forty years before my first sight of those^ arid hills 
and the mighty Mauna Kea behind them. 

A SOJOURN WITH THE LYONS. 

This second visit was made en route to Hilo and the volcano, via the 
mountain road to Laupahoehoe. The lady and children were provided with 
maneles, or litters, borne by natives, who were paid in trade and food. We had 
gone a few miles, when by an accident the writer's arm sustained compound 
fracture, which caused a return to Mr. Lyons 's house and further burden of 
four weeks upon their extremely cordial hospitality. There were hardly any 
children's books, but I devoured a considerable part of Eollins' Ancient His- 
tory while the bone was knitting, and formed a strong attachment for both 
Mr. and Mrs. Lyons, who were most amiable as well as devoted and capable 
missionaries. Mrs. Lyons died at Honolulu in the summer of 1837, amid the 
profound grief of the assembled missionaries. 

CAMPING ON MAUNA KEA. 

Starting again, we camped for the night on a splendid slope of Mauna 
Kea, amid lovely koa glades, and groups of wild cattle. A long open hut was 
constructed for our large party, in front of which an immense fire was built for 
warmth. Fresh beef had been procured from the Paniolos, and abundant steaks 
were broiled on the coals. It was a delightful experience. From Laupahoehoe, 



25 

then a populous village, we proceeded by water in a double canoe, in which 
we were caught in a slight squall midway under the high palis, and the sail 
carried away, to the terror of the lady passenger and the children. 

AT HILO AND THE VOLCANO IN 1836. 

At beautiful Hilo we were entertained for a week by Mr. and Mrs. Coan, the 
Lymans contributing thereto. Another week was spent in going to Kilauea, 
where we passed two night in a rain-storm in a leaky shanty, which our natives 
had imperfectly patched up. Before light on the third day we were awaked, and 
from the brink of the descent watched the brilliant fires below. At daylight 
we descended to the ''black ledge," on which we went out half a mile, and 
looked down into an immense elongated chasm where seemed to be great ac- 
tivity. The features of the volcano I at once recognized as those familiar in 
Ellis' picture made twelve years earlier. Those features had mostly become 
oblitrated at my next visit in 1857. The crater had then much filled up, and 
the fires had been transferred over a mile south to Halemaumau. 

We were off for Hilo before noon. Most of the road between Kilauea and 
Olaa had been handsomely corduroyed over the Pahoehoe with the trunks of 
tree ferns, which made progress rapid down hill. The then large population 
caused much travel between Hilo and Kau. We had set our faces homeward, 
taking the Hamakua coast and Waipio valley on our route. The strongest im- 
pression on the juvenile mind was that of the ocean viewed from the lofty 
pali, and the mighty walls of the great valley, with its immense waterfall. 

MISSIONARY VISITS TO KAILUA. 

Some mention should be interesting of memories of visits at Kailua from 
various missionaries. Such visits were always delightful to us. Yet the ladies 
and sometimes the children were apt to be landed from their schooners in sad 
plight, after the hardships of the voyage. I remember two fair young women 
being brought in in fainting condition in the litters which they had occupied 
on the deck of the vessel. These were Mrs. Dr. Chapin and Mrs. Ephraim 
Spaulding. The Spauldings made us a long visit, during which I formed an 
intense childish attachment to Mr. Spaulding, who was a sweet and devout 
man. An earlier visit is recalled made by the Bingham family about 1833. 
Most of their time was spent on the upland above us. Mrs. Bingham was 
much of an invalid. Father Bingham was a somewhat stately, courteous gen- 
tleman, for whom I had much liking and a little fear. The Baldwins re- 
peatedly visited us from Waimea. Dr. Baldwin we all liked. He was person- 
ally active, even breaking into a run, something rarely seen in grown men in 
Kailua. My childish impressions of all these friends was wholly favorable, 
accompanied by the utmost reverence for their spirituality and devoutness. 

VIVID MEMORIES OP AN EX-QUEEN. 

Very prominent in these recollections, is an aged native lady named Keku- 
puohe. She must have been about 75 years of age and still vigorous. She lived 
about half way from our house to the church, in premises of a superior sort, 



26 

befitting her rank. She had been a youthful wife of the elderly King Kalani- 
opuu, or Terreoboo as Captain Cook called him. She was by her royal husband's 
side, when Captain Cook was trying to lead him to his boat, and saw the great 
navigator slain. Kekupuohe had a strong but rather pleasant face covered with 
fine wrinkles, of lighter complexion than most of the people. Her short, thick 
white hair bristled densely around her forehead, so as vividly to appear in my 
memory today. She had a husband of inferior rank, a large fat man much her 
junior, of whom I remember chiefly his remarkable skill in expectorating, mak- 
ing shots with great accuracy at some yards distance through the door. The old 
lady, being royal, guarded herself from sorcery by the use of a spittoon. 

THE NATIVE VERSION OF COOK'S DEATH. 

Being ignorant of the language, I heard nothing directly of her story. My 
father often spoke of the circumstances of Cook 's death, as he had gathered them 
from many different eye witnesses. Their testimony all concurred in imputing 
it to a momentary rage provoked by Cook's extreme violence and injustice. 
They had universally believed him to be an incarnation of the great god Lono, 
had dedicated to him their best heiau, and had there offered to him solemn 
sacrifices of baked pigs, which he seemed to understand and accept. But they 
had become much incensed by his removing the palisades of the sacred heiau to 
his ship for firewood. A boat had consequently been stolen from his ship and 
broken up. Cook, greatly enraged, embargoed the bay with patrol boats, and 
attempted to seize the king and hold him as a hostage. Just as he was leading 
the king towards the boat, the news arrived that a high chief had been shot 
while crossing the bay. The frenzied people immediately slew the great Dis- 
coverer, who was really the victim of his own madness. 

RECOLLECTIONS OF SOME OF THE CHIEFS. 

Another prominent native was Naihe, the husband of Kapiolani, who lived 
at Kaawaloa. Like Kuakini, and Hopu, he always appeared in our presence, in 
pants and a jacket. 

Naihe appears in Hawaiian history as an orator, and spokesman for the king 
and chiefs. I never knew of him in that capacity. He was a rather aged man 
of spare form and ordinary height, and of considerable quiet dignity. Kona dis- 
trict was the residence of quite a number of chiefs of inferior rank, who were 
supported by the labor of their many serfs from the produce of the rich uplands. 
Occasionally a chair or a camphor trunk might be seen in the nice thatched cot- 
tages of such natives of rank, besides the mats, tapas, calabashes, and wooden 
bowls and trays which constituted their furniture. Cloth of any kind was scarce. 
Kuakini was disposed to monopolize such trade as came from occasional whalers 
touching at Kaawaloa. He possessed large quantities of foreign goods stored 
up in his warehouses, while his people went naked. I often heard my father 
tell of once seeing one of Kuakini 's large double canoes loaded deep with bales 
of broad cloths and Chinese silks and satins which had become damaged by long 
storage. They were carried out and dumped into the ocean. Probably they had 
been purchased by the stalwart Governor with the sandalwood which, in the 
twenties was such a mine of wealth to the chiefs, but soon became extirpated. 



27 

KUKUI NUT AND STONE LAMPS. 

My recollection is that very few of the people in those early days possessed 
any other form of lamp than kukui kernels strung upon the stiff cocoanut mid- 
ribs so as to form candles about twenty inches long. These were held in the 
hand, and nut after nut successively knocked off as it became burned out. I 
remember at our night embarkations in the Governor's canoes near his house, 
that we were lighted by torches made up of five or six kukui candles wrapped 
together in lauhala leaves, and burning with a great flare and smoke. On our 
journey in the interior of Hawaii, we encountered stone lamps which were 
merely a small hollowed stone containing some kind of grease in which lay a 
wick of twisted tapa. 

HOW FIRE WAS OBTAINED. 

The people commonly procured fire by friction of wood, although some of 
them had old files, from which they elicited sparks by strokes from a gun-flint. 
It was common to carry fire in a slow-burning tapa-match, especially when they 
wanted to smoke. I first saw fire obtained from wood at our camp on Mauna 
Kea. A long dry stick of soft hau or linden wood was used. A small stiff 
splinter of very hard wood was held in the right hand, and the point rubbed 
with great force and swiftness in a deep groove formed in the soft wood by the 
friction. A brown powder soon appeared in the end of the groove, began to 
smoke and ignited. This was deftly caught into a little nest of dry fibre and 
gently blown into a flame, which soon grew into an immense camp-fire. 

STONE AND STEEL TOOLS. 

Iron implements were not very abundant at that time among the people, 
although the neolithic age of polished stone cutting implements had ended 
soon after Cook had bought "fathom" hogs for a knife apiece made of hoop- 
iron. Large numbers of the natives owned little adzes formed of a bent steel 
plane-iron tightly lashed to a hard-wood handle composed of a small branch 
with a piece of the tree-stem attached to it. With these sharp edged adzes they 
would deftly dub away and carve out almost any desired smoothing of timber. 
Another common iron implement was the o-o, or dagger. The ancient form of o-o, 
then still in common use was a long stick of hardwood with a flattened point, 
held paddle-fashioned by the squatting laborer, who would rapidly clean the 
ground of weeds and break up the soil two or three inches deep. The iron o-o 
was a great improvement, being a thin oval blade-point with a socket into which 
the long handle was inserted. Even this was far behind the hoe, with which 
penetrating blows could be struck, notwithstanding Edwin Markham's melan- 
choly's lament. The "Man with the Hoe" had many centuries' advantage 
over the kanaka with the oh-oh-, especially the wooden one. But a Hawaiian 
preferred to dig on his haunches. 

AN ANTI-MISSIONARY FOREIGNER. 

There was a white blacksmith named Eice located in Kailua, who must have 
done a considerable business in hammering out o-os and bending plane-irons 



28 

for the natives. Mr. Eice was, like nearly all the non-missionary whites of those 
days, of irregular habits, and naturally hostile to the missionaries, whose efforts 
tendered to restrict immoralities. Poor Eice suffered in his own family. I re- 
member to have heard, without understanding, what it meant that Eice had a 
terrible time in the elopement of his young half-white daughter. He vainly 
searched for her on the premises of a white trader, who, as he soon after learned, 
had her headed up inside of a cask in his shed. Such an escapade, however, 
in those days carried with it no loss of character to a damsel in any native com- 
munity. Her only inconvenience would be the flogging her irate white parent 
administered. We were all greatly pleased to hear not long after we left Kailua 
that Mr. Eice had become converted and an earnest Christian under the minis- 
trations of Father Thurston, who had himself, like Dr. Lyman Beecher, been a 
blacksmith. Doubtless the anvil is as favorable to breeding missionaries as was 
the saw and plane in Nazareth, or the net at Bathsaida. 

NATIVE FISHING METHODS. 

The natives by the way wove admirable nets from the splendid olona fibre, 
which they stained dark brown with kukui juice. The sinkers were pebbles, the 
floats of wiliwili wood. Much fishing was accomplished with both seine and 
hook. The ancient bone hooks had disappeared. Steel fish hooks were a leading 
article of trade. The fishermen very commonly preferred a peculiar form of 
hook which they filed out themselves from large needles; it was without barb, 
the point being bent to one side and curving inward. The fisherman's craft was 
one of great skill and special knowledge. Canoes of all sizes were constantly 
seen on the sea, often going out to great distances on the usually smooth ocean 
that vast blue Pacific. 

CHARGES AGAINST THE MISSIONARIES. 

That Kailua storekeeper needs further notice. He was agent for a leading 
merchant at Honolulu. When my father was building his house, he used to give 
his workmen written orders on the trader for goods. Many orders read, ' ' Please 
give so and so five (more or less) glasses. " These " glasses' ' were miserable 
little shaving mirrors which distorted the features, sold at 25 cents each. In 
the following year 1832, came back from Boston the grave inquiry what meant 
this charge against Mr. Bishop of trading with the natives in liquor, as verified 
by these written orders for "glasses," which the Kailua trader had forwarded 
as evidence along with other accumulations of equally strong testimony to 
missionary hypocrisy, which a Honolulu syndicate caused to be published in 
Boston! 

NO CONSCIENCES WEST OF CAPE HORN. 

Missionaries were far more obnoxious in those days than "missionaries' 
sons" are now, being even better people than the latter, and their white 
opponents a rather hard set. Nearly every half-white youth of early days in 
Hawaii was brought up in an atmosphere pervaded with the most violent vilifi- 
cation of missionaries, and these continual calumnies were a frequent theme of 




THE OLD MISSION HOUSE AT KAILUA, BUILT BY REV. A. BISHOP IN 1831, THE 
HOME OF S. E. BISHOP UNTIL 1836. 




THE OLD MISSION HOUSE AT LAHAINA. HOME OP S. E. BISHOP PROM 1853 

TO 1862. (Prom a Daguerreotype.) 



29 

discussion in the missionary homes. A newspaper in Honolulu called the "Sand- 
wich Island Gazette," teemed with absurd charges and misconstructions of all 
kinds, which I used to read with much juvenile indignation. It was certainly a 
great hardship for those poor fellows who had comfortably "hung up their con- 
sciences at Cape Horn, ' ' and were living in serene satisfaction after the heathen 
ethical code, to have these perverse missionaries pick their consciences off from 
the Horn, bring them along to Hawaii, wind them up and set them running. One 
may forgive "the boys" for displaying some resentment at being caused to feel 
what sinners they were making of themselves among the kanakas. The two 
elements could not come into contact without much noisy efferescence. 

Money in those days was hardly a medium of exchange among the natives, 
most of whom were not familiar with the appearance of coin. 

What coin was in circulation was entirely Spanish, in dollars, quarters and 
reals, all probably coined in Spanish America. In my boyhood I never saw a 
British or United States coin of any sort. Gold was not at all in circulation. I 
did see once or twice a Spanish doubloon. Our purchases from the natives were 
paid for usually with school books and slates, but sometimes with a few yards 
of blue or white cotton cloth, or with fish-hooks or horn combs. Labor was hired 
in the same way. 

POVERTY OF THE COMMON PEOPLE. 

Up to 1839 on Oahu, the regular wage of ordinary labor was one real or 
$0,125 a day, usually paid by orders on a store. There was great poverty, 
although provident natives in good seasons generally had plenty to eat. But 
and one who had a good supply of food, would at once be visited and lived 
upon by all his kindred. Thus all thrift and saving was discouraged and un- 
known. The only way to prosper was to be a chief with a good tract of land 
and a body of retainers or serfs. Nearly all except the chiefish ones were serfs 
cultivating small allotments, held subject to the will of their masters. The mas- 
ters were not commonly severe, yet there was much cruel oppression, and little 
sense of human rights. 

AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS. 

Becurring to the use of agricultural implements, I never in early boyhood 
saw a plow a scythe, or a sickle, and I think, not a spade or shovel. My im- 
pression is that although the soil of Kona is exceedingly fertile, no plowing is 
possible on account of rocks. Most of the lava streams which entirely covered 
the land were of the a-a, or clinker variety. Holes would be made with an o-o 
into these rough, brittle stone-heaps and a slip of sweet potato vine inserted, 
which would grow luxuriantly. Much of the lava had undergone sufficient decay 
to form patches of very rich soil in which taro, sugar-cane, and bananas grew 
Luxuriantly. There were many breadfruit trees on the upland, although their 
fruit did not constitute any large part of the people 's food. We had no wheeled 
vehicles, not even a wheel-barrow. During our last year at Kailua a black pony 
eame and was used by the two mission families. The two clergymen rode it in 
turn on their short trips to preaching stations, and the ladies jogged along occa- 
sionally on a side saddle. None of the natives in those days had horses, except 



30 

the princely class of chiefs, and they were generally carried on large litters by 
scores of human bearers. 

CUSTOMS OF THE CHIEFS. 

Objects much in evidence among the natives, when visiting or at meetings 
as well as in their homes were their fans, and their fly-brushes or kahilis. The 
fans were made from the ends of young cocoanut leaves. The broad end being 
elastic, threw the air far more efficiently than the stiff fans now commonly 
braided. Get an old-fashioned native fan for comfortable use. Small fly-brushes 
were used by all the people. They were about four feet long, the upper half 
of the stick having the tail feathers of fowls tied on. The kahilis of the chiefs 
were larger and more elaborate. The long handles were often beautifully en- 
cased with tubes and rings of human bone and whale-tooth, also turtle shell, all 
finely polished. A high chief always had two or more attendants armed with k 
such fly-brushes. These chiefs were often unceremonious in their visits. At some 
early date, before my birth, my mother's little sitting room was once invaded 
by a bevy of ladies led by a royal dame, all fresh from their sea-bath, and in 
nature 's array. They brought their garments with them, and proceeded to dress 
while they chatted and paid the compliments of the day. Those were the good 
old times. 

STYLES OF MISSIONARY CLOTHING. 

Our parents were simply clothed in garments of light material, black being 
mostly reserved for Sunday. I think their cheaper garments were nearly all cut 
and sewed by their wives, and could not have been very stylish. They very com- 
monly appeared in the old-fashioned short jacket. I never saw a frock-coat at 
Kailua, only the claw-hammer. I was at one time, about 1835, much impressed 
with the unbecoming appearance of some grey cotton coats of the latter denomi- 
nation which the two missionaries wore for some time. The waists were very 
short and the claw hammers extremely scant. 

These coats with vests to correspond came from an assortment of ready 
made slops sent out by the treasurer of the American Board to our fiscal agent, 
who worked them off on the poor missionaries. Mr. Chamberlain's own com- 
ment upon these goods was, that "much of this clothing did not appear to be 
adapted to the human form. ' ' It had probably been supplied in Boston by some 
thrifty contractor, and passed without due inspection. 

DAILY LIFE OF A LADY MISSIONARY. 

Mrs. Bishop was an extremely active and efficient lady. Eising at four a. m., 
accomplishing all domestic duties and schooling her children before nine o'clock, 
she went at that hour into a school adjoining our premises, and taught the native 
children for six solid hours, occasionally running into the house to see that all 
was straight. She had a native male teacher as assistant. Her husband's school 
work was mainly superintendence of other schools in the town and outside. A 
considerable part of his time was occupied in Bible translation, in which he was 
aided by Gov. Kuakini and other leading natives, as "pundits," or experts in 



31 

their own tongue. Mrs. Bishop pretty thoroughly wore herself out by her energetic 
labors, which caused our removal in 1836 to the cooler climate of Ewa, Oahu, 
with its refreshing trade winds. The trades never reached Kailua. Those cool 
breezes banked up against Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa with the lofty upland 
between them. Sometimes a trade wind of extra force would tear over the 
uplands north of Hualalai, and was called a "Mumuku/' but that big mountain 
effectually sheltered Kailua from such rushing gales. We knew only the land 
and sea breezes, with an occasional Kona or westerly storm in the winter, at- 
tended by a heavy rain. 

"GENERAL MEETINGS" OF THE MISSION. 

Very prominent in the old mission life were our annual visits to Honolulu 
in attendance upon what was called the "General Meeting." That was an 
annual assembling at the capital of all the missionary families, occupying from 
four to six weeks. The hospitality of the missionaries residing at Honolulu was 
severely taxed in entertaining their rural associates. Many of the latter fami- 
lies secured native cottages and kept house in them. Our experiences at these 
times were varied and noteworthy. Especially so were the voyages to Honolulu 
and return. In these days of rapid transit from port to port in large and com- 
fortable steamers, no idea can be gained of the wretched miseries of those early 
and protracted voyages in small schooners. As a child 's experiences I recall 
them as among the severest physical sufferings of a fairly comfortable life. 
They must have been much worse to the lady missionaries. 

INTER-ISLAND TRANSPORTATION. 

As the time of General Meeting approached, Mr. Chamberlain would charter 
such coasting vessels as were available to convey the missionaries from the dif- 
ferent ports. Nearly all those vessels were small, varying from thirty to fifty 
tons, schooners or brigs. They were mostly owned by the kings or chiefs, and 
commanded by white or native skippers and mates. They were usually in very 
filthy condition, swarming with cockroaches and reeking of bilge water. We 
white passengers generally occupied the decks, on which our mattresses were 
spread, but had to dispute our scant space with a swarming crowd of natives, 
with their calabashes and dogs. The cabins were extremely narrow, and in- 
tolerable for stench. I have made a two-days' passage on one of the larger of 
these vessels when the crowd of sitting natives was so dense that the sailors 
could pass along the ship only by walking on the gunwales of the bulwarks. And 
many of these people were constantly smoking the very coarse tobacco of their 
own raising. 

THE TRIP TO LAHAINA. 

Added to these discomforts was the usually violent seasickness which the 
former aggravated. Sometimes the winds would favor, and the passage be com- 
paratively short, only two or three days. Usually there would be calms and 
adverse winds, and our miseries would be protracted for a week, more or less. 
The native skippers would be indifferent to making progress, and the helmsman 
would fall asleep at his tiller, so that the morning would find us farther from 



32 

our destination than the night before. In those days it was never supposed that 
a vessel could beat up the Molokai channel to Lahaina. That passage was 
always made around Lanai, occupying an average of three days. A good part 
of two days and nights would be spent in getting past the great bluff at the 
southwest point of Lanai. That dark bluff is a very familiar and unpleasant 
memory of my boyhood. Our vessel would lose the light sea-breeze after, per- 
haps sighting Lahaina, when the prevailing current would gently sweep us back 
under the frowning bluff, to linger out another twenty-four hours. It was tire- 
some, with a broiling sun roasting us on the unsheltered deck, where we lay- 
faint with nausea. 

A PESTHOLE CABIN. 

Once I remember a drenching rain coming suddenly upon us when all the 
passengers hastily tumbled down into the noisome cabin. The floor space of 
this pest-hole was about eight feet by six, with a berth on each side. These 
spaces were filled by the adults, and we children were distributed among them. 
I remember lying uneasily across the limbs of Mrs. Thurston, who counseled 
resignation, as she practiced. On this passage, probably in 1834, I think that 
we did not call at Lahaina, but passed outside of Kahoolawe on to Kailua. 
Generally, there was another delay in working up to Kailua, with a strong, 
adverse current thwarting us between the light land-breeze of night, and sea- 
breeze of day. The meetings were in May, so that we generally escaped all 
violent winds, and seldom shipped a sea. But the swell was commonly high,, 
and the motion of the little craft most uneasy. 

CHIEFLY ETIQUETTE. 

I remember at one embarkation at Kailua observing the great strength 
shown by Mr. Thurston as he tossed mattresses up from the boat to the deck, 
These fathers with their sick wives and children, had no time to indulge them- 
selves in feeling ill. Among our native passengers on one occasion was a little- 
child of high rank, attended by a comely maid of perhaps thirteen. The child 
ordered a drink of water which the maid brought in the slender tin cylinder; 
used to dip the water through the bunghole of the cask. The child imperiously 
resented such a container. The maid then distended her own cheeks with the 
water, and applying her lips to the child's mouth transferred the contents to 
the latter. This was received with entire satisfaction. Doubhtless, her little 
highness was used to drink in no other way, when so luxurious a beaker was 
available. 

INTER-ISLAND LIFE AT SEA. 

I do not think that the natives suffered from seasickness like the whites. 
Probably their habit of frequently going out in canoes, and perhaps their daily 
tossing on the waves in bathing, made them insensible to the unrelenting swing 
of the vessel. They seemed to enjoy themselves on the crowded deck, chatting, 
eating and smoking their horrible tobacco. To us the odors were distressing. 
To me, especially, the smell of tar became so identified with nausea and bilge 



33 

water, that in sitting in the Bethel under Chaplain Diell's preaching, the savor 
of tar from the neighboring ship yard would always produce nausea. Only a 
long voyage around Cape Horn weaned me of that peculiar aversion to tar, and 
made its odor not unwelcome. But bilge water I never came to like, especially 
that of a sugar-carrier. 

THE DELIGHTS OF LAHAINA. 

We took some interest in the land scenery of the voyage, especially in the 
easier descent towards Honolulu, with and not against the trades. On one night 
when well outside of Kailua, we were awakened to observe a strong red light 
over the summit of Mauna Loa, a reflection on the sky from some glowing lake 
or fountain in Mokuaweoweo. In crossing Hawaii Channel, the broken chasms 
of lofty Haleakala seemed wonderful in contrast with our smooth dome of 
Hualalai. Once we swept rapidly past little black Molokini, and soon raised the 
strange succession of mountain pyramids along West Maui, landing quickly at 
Lahaina with its rich groves of breadfruit and cocoanuts. Lahaina always 
brought us warm hospitality from the family of Rev. W. Richards, who was 
fellow-passenger with my father around Cape Horn in 1823. Many things com- 
bined to make Lahaina a delightful stopping place. One was the prevailing 
greenness in contrast with the aridity and black lavas of Kailua. Another was 
the noble grape vines hanging around the substantial stone mission house. These 
would be loaded with ripe fruit. Maternal prohibitions failed to keep our crav- 
ing fingers from the rich clusters. 

REMINISCENCES OP THE RICHARDS. 

But the most interesting thing at that house were some of its inmates. 
There were three cheerful boys of the age of myself and Asa Thurston, named 
William, Charles and James, with whom we had glorious times. There was one 
memorable night when we five boys were all in one bed, and talked to a late 
hour. It was there that I was introduced to my first absorbing knowledge of 
real juvenile stories, in the Youths' Companion of sixty- five years ago. I still 
take that paper, and quarrel with my grand-daughters for the first reading of 
it. The seven children of that delightful Richards' house long ago joined their 
parents in the better land, except the oldest daughter, now residing in a Boston 
suburb. William died young as a missionary in China. Father Richards was 
a very influential missionary, and left a strong mark upon the political and 
educational systems of Hawaii before his premature death in 1847. He built the 
first stone mission house in the Islands, a very commodious one, in which all 
my children were afterwards born. 

THE FIRST STONE CHURCH. 

Mr. Richards also, in conjunction with the notable Governor Hoapili, built 
the first stone church in the Islands in 1831. It was a very substantial and 
commodious structure, which I remember attending before the rough masonry 
had received any coat of plaster. The new galleries were crowded with people. 
We walked to church through the cocoanut grove north of the edifice. The trees 



34 

were then young, and I wondered at the nearness of the great fronds and the 
clusters of nuts to the ground, being used only to the more ancient and lofty 
trees of Kailua. These Hoapili trees, in their turn, are now aged. As we de- 
corously walked, the three Eiehards boys solemnly marched abreast in front of 
us. There were no other missionaries in Lahaina, except Miss Ogden, a nobly 
good woman, whose motherly aid greatly supported the rather feeble Mrs. 
Eiehards. Mr. Spalding and Dr. Chapin came there in 1832, a little later. 
Probably Eev. Lorrin Andrews had just started the Seminary at Lahainaluna, 
of which I had charge forty years later. 

REMINISCENCES OF KALAKUA. 

We heard much of Hoapili-wahine, or Kalakua, but I do not remember to 
have seen her. She was of royal birth, and a wife of Kamehameha, to whom she 
bore Kinau, the mother of Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V. She was a 
firm and devoted Christian, and earnestly sought to suppress the moral dis- 
orders of that seaport. She and Mr. Eiehards leaned much upon each other. I 
have heard that on one occasion the missionary sought to relieve the old queen 
by bleeding, but was unable to find the vein in the mass of fat enclosing it. 
On another occasion, he asked her why she did not plant cocoanuts upon an 
unoccupied tract at the north end of the town. She wanted to know of what 
use they would ever be to her at her age. "But where will be the nius of your 
grandson, Lot?" (Kamehameha V). The old lady instantly dispatched her 
schooner to Puna for a cargo of the nuts, which became the immense grove now 
bounding Lahaina on the north. 

LIFE IN OLD HONOLULU. 

We usually, after a day or two in hospitable Lahaina, made the remaining 
run to Honolulu in a night, or little more, with the fresh trades behind us. 
This town was not then an attractive place. By May or June there was much 
heat and dust, and no verdure in sight. The small mission herd had thoroughly 
depastured the plain which extended unbroken by house or tree to Punahou, 
while brown Punchbowl with its dry slopes frowned darkly above. Mr. Cham- 
berlain's great oxen stalked slowly about with skinny ribs and projecting hip 
bones. There are still two buildings standing of that old mission colony. One 
is the ancient Bingham home, which was transported around the Horn in 1821. 
The other is the stone Chamberlain house, still retaining its antique little win- 
dows, and surrounded by the same coral walls. The garret of this was the 
"Depository," where were a variety of goods for the needs of the missionaries. 
Mr. Chamberlain was an extremely busy and rather precise person, yet cordial 
and agreeable, and admirably fitted to his position. Having often to arbitrate 
between contending claims of the sisters to the scanty supplies of necessary 
goods, he encountered some grumbling, but bore it patiently, although sometimes 
thought to be rather arbitrary. I recall one complaint that he allowed two 
barrels of flour a year to each of the Honolulu families, while the rest of us 
got only one. It seemed, on the whole, however, that he was justified by the 
fact that the former households had to entertain much more company. At one 



35 

house, the printer Sheppard's, where we took tea, when we got home it was 
remarked as a waste of precious flour, that hot short cake was the chief food 
served. I have had a weakness for that viand ever since. 

HONOLULU "A HARD OLD CAMP." 

These reminiscences seem to have got away from Kailua to Honolulu. They 
seem likely to continue in that inviting field. Honolulu was a hard-looking old 
camp in those days. A drawing of it in the early thirties, afterwards engraved 
at Lahainaluna, is to be seen in the Honolulu Eeading Eoom. It gives some 
notion of the facts. Most of the dwellings were native thatched cottages, chiefly 
pili-grass. They were irregularly scattered in enclosures of rotten adobe walls. 
One main street, now King street, of good width, extended from the present 
corners of South and Bethel streets. Quite a lane followed the course of Mer- 
chant street. Fort and Nuuanu streets had no existence. There was a lane up 
Punchbowl to Beretania, and along Beretania to Union. A number of other 
narrow lanes ran here and there. There were irregular fragments of street near 
the waterfront from Fort to Nuuanu, where were three or four stores of traders, 
mostly stone or adobe structures of one story. 

DREARY, UNCOMFORTABLE AND UNSANITARY. 

There were scarcely any trees in the town. A few hau trees were in some 
premises. About 1836, Pride of India appeared. Occasionally cocoanuts and 
pandanus were seen. The only drinking water was drawn from the shallow 
wells dug through the coral to tide level. Being slightly brackish, it was dis- 
tasteful to us, who were used to mountain water. Probably it was rather insani- 
tary. The mission dooryards were nearly devoid of vegetation, the manienie, or 
Bermuda grass, not having become common. Nothing could be less attractive than 
the general aspect of the town, of which its present inhabitants can form little 
idea. Of foreign-built houses there were few in 1832, when my definite memory 
begins. The King lived chiefly at Lahaina, but had a house on the Fort-wall 
here, and perhaps near the present Capitol. Near the south corner of that en- 
closure was a fairly good stone house occupied by Auhea, or Kekauluohi, the 
mother of the late King Lunalilo. A dwelling-house of some importance was 
that of the British Consul, Richard Charlton, later occupied by his successor, 
General Miller, which stood there for seventy years, adjacent to the ex-queen's 
premises. 

CHARLTON — A BETE NOIR TO DECENT PEOPLE. 

This Charlton was a conspicuous person, a beefy, red-faced Britisher, loud 
and aggressive. He made himself much feared and hated by nearly all classes 
of the population. His actions are largely set forth in the histories of Bingham 
and Jarves. I well remember him, having repeatedly gone with my mother in 
her calls upon Mrs. Charlton and her sister, Mrs. Taylor, who were very estimable 
English ladies. In the presence of the ladies Mr. Charlton laid aside his violent 
deportment and aggressive language. He was notorious as a reckless falsifier 
of truth. He was a man of loose life and a free drinker. There was probably 



36 

no white man here more obnoxious to the missionaries or to the chiefs, and few 
persons more disreputable in public and private life. Charlton was bete noir 
to all decent or quiet people in Honolulu. 

CHURCH SERVICES IN 1838. 

Up to 1838 there was only one church edifice in Honolulu except the Sea- 
men's Bethel, which was built in 1834 or 1835. The immense thatched native 
church was conspicuous at Kawaiahao, standing seaward of the present building, 
and at right angles to it. It was certainly very large. I have some very defi- 
nite memories of church attendance there, sitting centrally near the high pulpit, 
where Father Bingham presided in much dignity. He was animated and im- 
pressive in address, and manifestly of weightiest authority with his congrega- 
tion. But his sermons were much protracted, and many of the natives fell asleep. 
The audiences were large, and nearly filled the great length of the building. 
The pulpit was in the center of the Waikiki side, near by were two or three old- 
fashioned high pews, occupied by royal chiefs, and a few settees in front. The 
body of the people sat on mats on the ground. 

INHARMONIOUS SINGING. 

Well in front was quite a company of singers, led by Dr. and Mrs. Judd, 
among whom were several large and fleshy women. I remember thinking that 
their voices were inharmonious, and much given to improper slurring of the 
notes. The people were dressed much like those already described at Kailua, 
and with little, if any, more array of clothing. I have less recollection of in- 
dividual chiefs there than of those at Kailua. I recall having once been eon- 
ducted to the famous Eegent Kaahumanu, at her house. She was sitting in a 
large chair, on a dais, probably a state occasion, and seemed like a great per- 
sonage. Probably not many weeks later, I well remember seeing her on her 
deathbed in Manoa Valley. It was night. She lay in a dying state on a high 
pile of mats, in a thatched house, with many people around her. She passed 
away that evening, which the record gives as June 5, 1832. 

A MISSION REINFORCEMENT. 

I was then five years old, and retain a number of particulars vividly stamped 
on memory. One of these was in the Bingham's parlor, at a reception of the 
"new missionaries, ' ' just arrived by the Avrick, from Boston. Among those 
young recruits, I especially recall the marked features of the Eev. W. P. Alex- 
ander, who was sitting on the Ewa side of the inner door of the parlor. Among 
the newcomers were the Lymans, Armstrongs, Hitchcocks, Forbeses, Emersons 
and others, since prominent in Hawaiian annals. The long years have lapsed, 
and their grandchildren have come to the front, with many of their little ones, 
a fourth generation, around them. That was a reinforcement to the mission of 
exceptional strength, both in mental ability and evangelistic fervor. Through 
several of those young men, the powerful revival work of Charles G-. Finney be- 
gan to spread its high spiritual kindling in the toiling workers in Hawaii. They 
gladly responded to that quickening breath which cheered and inspired them 
to fresh and apostolic fervor. 



37 

The earliest memory whose date I can give is that of a visit with my father 
to the United States sloop Vincennes, in November, 1829, when I was two and a 
half years old. Eev. Charles Stewart was the ship's chaplain. The memory is 
that of a fearful being at the door of the captain's cabin, an armed sentry; 
and of Messrs. Stewart, Bishop and Captain Finch, seated near a large round 
table laughingly soothing the terrified child. Stewart's books are the most in- 
structive records of Hawaii in the twenties. 

DESTRUCTION OF KOU TREES. 

Before transferring the locality of these reminiscences from Hawaii to Oahu, 
a number of incidents and items have suggested themselves to be added. Among 
these are the various forms of vegetation in our rather barren yards at Kailua. 
There were two or three young kou trees, perhaps ten or fifteen feet high which 
we children would climb. The bright orange-hued flowers held a trace of honey, 
and their rather fleshy texture was not unpalatable to chew. The large, glossy 
cordate leaves formed a thick and beautiful foliage. The small nuts contained 
sweet kernels which repaid some effort to extract by pounding between stones. 
The kou used to be the most beautiful tree in the Hawaiian Islands, as well as 
supplying the choicest of ornamental wood. Lahaina was once fringed with 
these massive spreading trees. One of the finest was in the yard of Mr. Eich- 
ards, on whose great low boughs we boys loved to climb. About 1860, a 
minute insect called "red spider" came to infest the under-side of the leaves to 
such an extent as in the course of a year to destroy every kou tree, not only in 
Lahaina, but throughout the group. The timber of the dead trees was cut and 
used for furniture, much being sent to Germany. The chiefs' great calabash 
bowls of kou are now rare and choice. Young trees of the species exist here and 
there. The trees have always succumbed to the insect pest before attaining any 
considerable size. Perhaps Professor Koebele might discover a lady bug anti- 
dote. 

ABSENCE OF TREES AND FLOWERS. 

Another climbable tree in our yard was a castor-oil of unusual size, which 
lasted four or five years. This Palmo Christi was a common weed in the group, 
although an imported plant. A number of papaya trees flourished and bore 
their melon-like fruit. Among the rocks were pockets of soil, through which cer- 
tain trees and plants sent down deep roots so as to survive the long dry seasons. 
We had two healthy shrubs called "Pride of Barbadoes," whose rich plumy 
blossoms resemble those of Poinciana Eegia, or "Flame Tree." Of other flowers, 
I remember none at our home. There were beautiful damask roses at Kuapehu. 
On reaching the Atlantic States in May, 1840, the variety and brilliance of the 
garden flowers was an endless marvel. Kona shore was never a land of flowers. 
Yellow ilimas were the brightest. Even now the imported flowers have hard 
struggle to thrive on Oahu except in high altitudes, where they do flourish won- 
derfully. Exceptions are the lantana, and the tropical Poinciana and Bougain- 
villea, with some luxuriant creepers, which often form great curtaining splendors. 

Kailua was quite exempt from dust. Strong winds were rare, and the great 
stone heaps absorbed any loose earth that might be flying. On the lower and 



38 

dryer uplands, perhaps a mile distant, were a few clumps of lauhala. One of 
these, conspicuous in the distance from our back door, simulated in the twilight 
the shape of a lion, and was an object of childish uneasiness, despite the knowl- 
edge that it was only a tree. High on the mountain laid the great forest of tall 
trees, as they seemed to us, and below them the uplands checkered into patches 
enclosed in heavy walls or piles of rocks. In the distance to the south laid a 
long slope on which were many scattering trees. South Kona looked as if a fine, 
attractive region. I have never visited it except along the coast. Once in the 
evening I saw a huge meteor sweep past overhead and apparently plunge into 
those southern lands. 

EARLY ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY. 

We were taught a little astronomy, although in those days the nature of 
lt shooting stars' ' and comets was unknown. The Thurston children repeatedly 
came down, and in the early evening we picked out on a globe and in the sky a 
number of constellations, and learned to know the larger planets and stars. At 
Honolulu we saw and studied a fine Orrey, with a full assortment of moons in 
lively revolution. Dr. Judd had there also a little elec+rical cylinder machine, 
from which Persis would bravely lead off in taking small shocks for the string 
of children holding hands. The connection of electricity and magnetism was 
then unknown. I believe the doctor had a Leyden jar. Of geology we never 
heard. The globe had been created in six ordinary days, and there was no mys- 
tery about it. Still we got a grounding in scientific ideas which opened the way 
for the broader modern outlook. We had some notion of the spacial immensity 
revealed by astronomy, but none of the immensity of time as now disclosed. 
Six thousand years was the limit of past earthly chronology. 

NATIVE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

Speaking of mountain fruits, we children had met with wild strawberries on 
the high slopes of Mauna Kea, also with ohelos at Kilauea. My acquaintance 
with the akala or mountain raspberry came later. In 1867 seven or eight miles 
above Kailua, in the wet depth of the luxuriant forest, I came upon a giant cane 
of raspberries forty feet in length hanging through a tree-crotch. On the end 
hung a cluster of berries that occupied the space of nearly a bushel basket. I 
picked one raspberry which measured over seven inches in circumference. This 
fruit was of fine flavor, but absolutely devoid of sweetness. I fancy thatt the 
seeds of these berries had been at some time transported from the abounding 
berry fields of the American coast by migratory geese or other birds to whose 
feet or feathers they had become attached. Violets also have been found on the 
extreme summit of West Maui. In 1836 I saw a sumach thicket in remote 
Hamakua, which must have preceded Cook's discovery. Breadfruit, taro, ba- 
nanas, sweet potatoes and sugar cane were doubtless imported by the early Ha- 
waiian immigrants. 

TAPA AND MAT MAKING. 

Among the familiar objects of Kailua were the wide strips of white bark of 
"wauke" or paper mulberry, which were often spread out upon the black lava or 



39 

upon beds of pebbles in the process of preparation for pounding out into tapa 
cloth. Quantities of lauhala or pandanus leaves were also laid out in prepara- 
tion for weaving into coarse mats. A locality much frequented by us was a* 
rocky cove at the shore where we often bathed, wearing flannel gowns. After 
the bath we stepped a little inland to a house where the native women would 
empty over us, to wash out the salt, calabashes of brackish water from a little 
pool or well four or five feet down, a sort of cave in the lava. There was a 
variety of animal life in the small pools of the cove, and an occasional live shell. 
The beach sands abounded in damaged shells of no special beauty, but desired 
by children. 

INTRODUCTION OF TOMATOES AND GUAVAS. 

Among weeds on the shore, in the moister season, purslane abounded, also 
mustard. Pepper-grass and wild tomatoes appeared about 1835. Indigo was in- 
troduced into gardens on Oahu a little later, and in the course of fifteen years 
became a detested weed, nearly disappearing, however, after 1870. Guavas were 
choice garden fruits in the later thirties, not becoming wild until some twenty 
years later. Calling at the end of 1839 at Eimeo, near Tahiti, I wondered to see 
the hills overgrown by wild guavas. Our ship took on a supply of guava fire- 
wood, some of which went to the captain's lathe for " scrimshawing, ' ' in which 
much sperm-whale jawbone and teeth were also consumed. This reminds me of 
a long walk over the black lava knobs north of Kailua, which we once took to a 
little sand beach where lay the vast rotting carcass of a whale, probably killed 
and lost by some whaler cruising in those waters. We used to look from the vil- 
lage off to those black points in the north where in storms enormous clouds of 
spray like great ships flew up from the angry attacks of the waves. 

EARLY COWBOYS AND CATTLE. 

While in those days horses were rarely seen in Kona, there were quite a num- 
ber of those animals in use on Mauna Kea in catching wild cattle, by "Panio- 
los" or Spanish cowboys, with whom were also natives and half -Spaniards. 
These cowboys manufactured their own heavy Spanish saddles and bridles, with 
their lariats, all of cowhide, save the wooden saddle frame, and the cruel iron 
bits and spurs, made by some ll armorer' ' or smith. The wild Mexican breed of 
cattle could be handled only with the merciless lasso, and the high-pommeled 
saddle to enable the trained pony to lean back and keep up the strain on the 
noosed beeve or bipi. The Australian tame English breed of cattle required 
only the whip, and so the Australian saddle has no pommel. Horses were always 
called lio by the natives, probably a shortening of the Spanish "caballo" (ea- 
balleo). 

POSTAGE AND POSTAL METHODS. 

My father wrote and received a good many letters. All were sealed with 
wafers or wax, envelopes being unknown. United States postage was twenty- 
five cents for every piece of paper, large or small. The proper folding of a let- 
ter sheet was quite an art, and the portions of the outer page which were 
turned inside would be carefully filled with writing. Stamps being unknown, 



40 

' ' Paid 25 Cents ' ' would be written with, a pen by the postmaster at the seaport. 
At one time several large volumes of an encyclopedia with many wonderful 
plates came from somewhere to engage our interest. Among the plates espec- 
ially wonderful were some illustrating anatomy. That particular volume soon 
mysteriously disappeared, no doubt being deemed unadapted to the childish 
mind. But an enduring fascination in that subject was there created. Such is 
forbidden fruit! 

YOUTHFUL GRIEVANCES AND RELIGIOUS LIFE. 

We were not rich in toys. At a visit to Honolulu in 1835, we were enabled 
to see a considerable assortment of cheap toys sent out for the Mission children. 
We awaited the distribution with intense anxiety, our desires being especially 
fixed upon a Noah's Ark with its inhabitants. How deep then was our chagrin 
and resentment when the Mater, with a view to utility, selected for us a dimin- 
utive iron skillet. I think that was one of the most serious grievances of my 
early life; but no remonstrance availed or was tolerated. That skillet became 
prominent in the domestic economy as a glue pot. Utility held much place in 
our education. I learned sewing with my sister, and became somewhat skilled 
with the needle, an art not wholly useless in later life. But I never learned to 
throw a ball straight — indeed never saw a ball game before reaching America. 

Most prominent in our education was religious instruction, although for 
some reason we never made the slightest acquaintance with the Shorter Cate- 
chism. Indeed I doubt if either of our parents had ever learned that famous 
compend of doctrine, both having passed their childhood in the pioneer life of 
the Onondaga and Genesee frontiers. Family prayers came twice a day. The 
father was most sincere, devout, and impressive in petitions and discourse. We 
all read verses in turn. I began to take my turn soon after being four years old. 
Some " Practical Observations ' ' always followed from Scott's Commentary. The 
Bible became an exceedingly familiar book, both in its history and in its general 
system of doctrine as in those days interpreted. Indeed I have not very radically 
diverged in later life from those old conceptions of Divine truth. Singing was 
confined to our weekly prayer-meeting; but a considerable number of the "Vil- 
lage Hymns" were memorized in childhood, and have never been forgotten. 

DIFFICULTY OF TEACHING ENGLISH. 

The instruction of the natives was conducted exclusively in their own lan- 
guage. I remember only one child to whom my father taught English, and she 
was a grandchild of the Governor. Nearly every new missionary undertook to 
teach some English to the natives, but soon became satisfied of the futility of 
the effort. Foreign visitors very uniformly censured the missionaries for not 
so teaching the natives, and opening to them the wide treasures contained in the 
English language. It was simply impracticable. Even now after more than 
forty years of diligent teaching of English in the common and high schools, not 
one native in five so taught can read an ordinary English newspaper. Much 
success, however, has been secured in boarding schools, where the pupils are re- 
quired to converse only in English. The language has gradually made itself at 
home in such schools, and new pupils fall into its use almost spontaneously. 



41 



A MISSIONARY ERROR. 



I have long regarded the most serious error of the missionary work as pur- 
sued in these Islands as being the failure to begin by establishing, as fast as 
possible, training schools for the thorough civilizing and Christianizing of youth 
to become leaders of their people in all good things. We can see how much has 
been accomplished by such means in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands by a very 
small number of white missionaries located on Kusaie. Each trained native 
couple becomes a light to the people. Many of the older missionaries were deep- 
ly impressed with the importance of that line of work. But, unhappily, a theory 
prevailed in the Board of Missions in Boston that the true work of the mission- 
ary was to "preach the Gospel, " and not to impart education beyond what was 
necessary to read and understand the Bible, except that a few native preachers 
and teachers should receive special training. The Eev. Dr. Eufus Anderson, 
whose influence was paramount, always frowned upon creating any such system 
of boarding schools as have gradually grown up here under American mission 
auspices during the past forty years. Mr. Edward Bailey and Miss Ogden es- 
tablished one girls' boarding school at Wailuku about 1840, but through Dr. 
Anderson's malign influence this was allowed to die out. At his visit here in 
1863, he supported the creation of one boarding school for training wives for 
pastors and missionaries. Only older girls were allowed in that school. I per- 
sonally witnessed Dr. Anderson's severe manifestation of disapproval of board- 
ing schools for female children. He was a good, mainly a wise man and of im- 
mense capacity for controlling and ruling; but wedded to his own theories. Had 
training schools for young boys and girls been conducted forty years earlier, I 
believe that Hawaiian civilization would have been greatly accelerated. 

REMOVAL TO EWA. 

Eeverend Artemas Bishop, in the summer of 1836, removed with his wife 
and two children from Kailua, Hawaii to Ewa, Oahu. A chief cause for 
the change of parish was the impaired health of Mrs. Bishop, in whom hard 
work as a school teacher in a very warm climate had produced some de- 
gree of nervous prostration. This gradually abated in the cooler breezes of 
Ewa, with abstinence from school work, although the energetic missionary still 
applied herself to active labors among the women, who met on our prem- 
ises in great numbers. 

CHURCH BUILDING BY LOWELL SMITH. 

Our predecessors at Ewa were Eev. and Mrs. Lowell Smith, specially cap- 
able and devoted missionaries who had been only two years in the field. 
Mr. Smith had built a comfortable house of adobe bricks, thatched with 
grass and well plastered inside and out. He had also erected the adobe 
walls of a church, capable of holding an audience of about one thousand 
people. I think the roof also was on. Mr. Smith took up his residence 
in Honolulu, at first engaging in organizing and superintending day-schools, 
but soon organizing a second parish in the capital, and building the old Kau- 
makapili church. The architecture of this as well as the Ewa church was 



42 

simple and homely. The adobe walls fifteen feet high were covered by a 
steeply pitched roof, which extended out in a verandah on all four sides, 
in order to protect the base of the mud walls from being destroyed by rain- 
drip. The timbers of the roof were long beams dragged from the mountains 
entirely by human strength, the labor being secured by volunteering, under 
the leadership of the chiefs. 

THE MISSION PREMISES OF EWA. 

Our removal from Kailua was with many impedimenta. There were four 
cows and heifers, and a flock of a dozen goats. A good sized canoe was 
brought for use in transportation between Honolulu and Pearl Eiver. Among 
other things were a few cuttings of tree-figs from Kuapehu, the ends of 
which were inserted into sweet potatoes to prevent drying. From these pro- 
ceeded a small grove of fig trees, which afterwards yielded abundant fruit. 
The mission house was located on the west bank of the Waiawa creek, about 
one-fourth mile northwest of the present railway station at Pearl City. 
There was nearly an acre of ground enclosed in an adobe wall. Some dis- 
tance seaward was a glebe of a couple of acres of taro swamp, a little below 
where the railway bridge now crosses the creek. A small cattle pen was 
enclosed about twenty rods north. An old wall of the natives separated the 
upland from the planted lands and kept out the pigs and afterward the 
cattle. Copious springs of most delicious water abounded throughout the dis- 
trict of Ewa, a small one being in our own grounds. 

ADOBE BUILDINGS. 

Adobes furnished an excellent material for cheap building. The rich soil 
was very clayey. A species of bunch grass called makuikui, thickly covered 
the lower uplands. The dry fibre of its leaves lay in great accumulations of 
many years' growth. This very tough fibre was gathered in great quan- 
tities and trodden by the natives into the wet clay. This fibrous mortar 
after standing over night, was retrodden and moulded into huge bricks to 
be dried in the sun. So tough was the resulting concretion, that it was 
nearly impossible to drive a nail into a well made adobe. I have always 
fancied that makuikui grass to be worth study as a valuable fibre plant. 
It has nearly become extinct, being a favorite food of animals. Probably it 
can still be found in Ewa among the cliffs. 

PENALTY FOR GOAT STEALING. 

My father's cows were the first cattle that had ever run on the Ewa up- 
lands. Waiawa valley above us lay knee deep with the richest of grass, where 
our cows rioted. Our goats took to the higher ground, where they flourished, 
being driven in and penned at night. This flock of goats was suddenly 
multiplied in a remarkable manner. One day they were found missing, and 
no trace discovered by any search. A flock of two hundred goats had been 
driven over from Waialua to Honolulu and our poor little drove of thirty 
absorbed on the road. The skins of ours were speedily identified in town 



43 

"by a peculiar mark on the ears. The thief was brought before Governor 
Kekuanaoa, who sentenced him to make scriptural reparation, namely four- 
fold. He had to sell a fine horse, buying with the proceeds one hundred 
and twenty goats, which he very humbly delivered. An enlarged stockade 
had to be built for their accommodation. The kids would often stick their 
noses between the poles when hungry hogs on the watch would bite off their 
muzzles. 

"ROBBING THE POOR NATIVES." 

We made constant use of goat's milk for the table and cooking. Kid's 
flesh was a savory diet. Goat's mutton was too rank and went to the use 
of our native servants. Cow's milk was all reserved for butter, some of 
which was contributed to our hospitable friends at the capital. The herd 
gradually multiplied and in a few years became large. Mrs. Bishop finding 
herself incapacitated for teaching, finally devoted herself to butter-making, 
which brought in a good income relieving the American Board of their support. 
As the result the missionary couple when aged, had accumulated enough for 
their own support, and left about $7,500 apiece to their two children. A 
third of this, however grew from avails of city lots in Eochester, N. Y. orig- 
inally a piece of primeval forest inherited by Mrs. Bishop. As missionaries 
went forty years ago, these old people were counted among the "rich mis- 
sionaries" who had "robbed the poor Hawaiians. " 

MORAL CONDITIONS IN EWA AND WAIANAE. 

I was in Ewa three and a half years, being then sent "home" to the 
States, after the custom of missionaries' children. During that time I wit- 
nessed a constant and arduous devotion of my parents to spiritual and 
educational labor for the native people. My father's parish was a large one, 
extending from Salt Lake to Kaena Point, including the districts of Ewa 
and Waianae, with a population of seven or eight thousand, exclusively Ha- 
waiians. Owing to their contiguity to a large sea-port, the moral condition 
of the people was more corrupt than at Kailua. In Ewa, a considerable body 
of hopeful christians had been gathered into the church. Most of the people 
gave a friendly attention to religious teaching. The proprietary chief of 
Ewa was the pious Premier Kinau, whose influence secured the general ad- 
herence of the people to the missionary. It was otherwise in Waianae, whose 
proprietary chief was Liliha, or "Madam Bobie," who had long been hostile 
to the Protestant missionaries. The Waianae people were accordingly averse. 

LIVING CONDITIONS AT EWA. 

We had a most excellent near neighbor in Kanepaiki, the old head man, 
or Konohiki of Ewa, for whom I formed a decided affection. He was very 
efficient in completing the unfurnished church, and in building a large adobe 
school-house, not far from the present District school. In a year or two, a 
very competent teacher came from Lahainaluna Seminary, a fine looking 
native, named Haaliliamanu. He grew to be high in the King's favor and 



44 

became a ' l Hulumanu, ' ' or member of the King's personal staff. Here and 
there, in the vicinity, lived native men or women of a class above the common 
makaainanas, although hardly chiefs, yet in possession of such ' ' ilia ' ' of land 
as to enable them to keep a few dependents. Of such a kind was old Deborah 
who had a very lazy horse, always at our service when needed for a trip to 
town. Throughout the district of Ewa the common people were generally well 
fed. Owing to the decay of population great breadths of taro marsh had 
fallen into disuse, and there was a surplus of soil and water for raising food. 

KAILUA AND EWA CONTRASTED. 

The dwellings of the common natives, I think, were in poorer condition 
than those in Kailua. Doubtless the moister climate caused more decay 
of the thatch. The people were also probably more drunken and dissolute. 
As in Kailua, there was no dwelling of a native not of the old Hawaiian 
style. Three miles west at Waipahu, stood a partially framed house, occupied 
by Mr. Thomas Hunt. The clothing of the common people was mostly in the 
old native costume. A few more men wore cotton shirts when out on a 
week-day, and now and then legs were incased in pants when at church. No 
beasts of burden were in use. All burdens were carried on the old native 
yoke or mamaka, just as Chinese now carry them in the streets of Honolulu. 
As in Kailua, numbers of lean swine hung around the outer walls of the 
villages, or were occasionally enclosed in pens. Owning no land and de- 
pendent on the caprice of their superiors, the common people were shiftless 
and indolent, living from hand to mouth. 

MONEY WAGES UNKNOWN. 

Money wages for labor were nearly unknown. Perhaps along the wharves 
in Honolulu, laborers might earn a real or hapawalu a day. Domestic serv- 
ants or ohuas were glad to be employed for their keep. It needed quite a 
number of them to perform the work of a small household. Expenses were 
light. In the later thirties, the missionaries began to be paid regular stipends 
of four hundred dollars for each couple, and a small addition for each child. 
This was found to be comparative opulence, with our very plain way of living. 
Our servants cultivated the little glibe, and so fed us and themselves. Pig- 
pen, cow-pen and goat-pen contributed with broods of fowls and turkeys. 

PIA AS A DIET. 
Supplies of bananas, sugar cane, melons, squashes and other eatables were 
bought for books, slates etc. A very common article was pia, or arrow root, 
which came in the form of balls in a dirty condition, imperfectly separated 
from the fibre of the tubers. This we would wash and strain, leaving the 
snow-white sediment to be dried in the sun. Pia was a favorite diet with 
the little mission children in Honolulu, and probably wholesome. I had a 
special aversion for it, owing to an unhappy infantile experience. It was 
with a distressing loathing that I used to see little tots gorging themselves on 
their home steps with the brown jelly in their tin cups. It was colored with 
molasses. But those little Clarks and Judds all grew up healthy. A chief 



45 

use of pia was for starching clothes. To separate the starch from the potato- 
like tubers required only grating, straining and washing. The tubers grew 
wild, probably an imported plant, with an arrow-shaped leaf. 

TRIPS TO WAIALUA. 

Our family made repeated trips to the home of Eev. John S. Emerson at 
"Waialua during those years. There was then no road save a foot path across 
the generally smooth upland. We forded the streams. Beyond Kipapa gulch 
the upland was dotted with occasional groves of Koa trees. On the high 
plains ti plant abounded often so high as to intercept the view. No cattle 
then existed to destroy its succulent foliage. According to the statements 
of the natives a forest formerly covered the whole of the then nearly naked 
plains. It was burned off by the natives in search of sandal-wood which 
they detected by its odor when burning. There were no bridges in Wailua. 
I think we crossed the creeks in canoes, swimming the horses. The Emer- 
sons were living in the then new stone house, which is still standing, much 
dilapidated. The wooden upper story was added later. At one time I 
spent several weeks there very pleasantly with my mother. Both Mr. & Mrs. 
Emerson were very kind. Mr. Emerson heard my Virgil lessons, and inducted 
me into the mystery of scanning hexameters. He was an apt teacher. 

HOME-MADE MOLASSES AND FILTERS. 

The only disagreeable thing I remember was a certain monotony of diet 
at supper, which consisted chiefly of pai-ai and molasses. Mr. Emerson 
made his own molasses, grinding a few bundles of cane in a little wooden mill 
turned by oxen, and boiling down the juice in an old whaler's try-pot. The 
syrup was so thick as to run with difficulty from the bottle, and extremely 
sweet. All our molasses at Ewa was supplied by Mr. Emerson. On one occa- 
sion the missionary took his ox-cart, and with several natives, went some 
distance along the beach to the northward, where we broke out and loaded 
the cart with a quantity of large blocks of creamy sandstone, from twelve 
to fifteen inches thick. It was found beneath the sand in the water, and was 
in so soft a condition as to be cut like cheese. After a few day's exposure, 
it petrified to great hardness, just as lime mortar does by carbonating in the 
air. After getting it to the house, all hands went to work and hollowed 
and shaped the blocks into conical drip stones. I was furnished with mallet 
and gouge, and hollowed out a passable drip stone not very well proportioned. 
Such stones were much used for filtering and cooling water in those days. 

NO BRIDGES UNTIL 1840. 

Our journeys to Honolulu were infrequent, at first by canoe, but latterly 
on horseback, my father having become the possessor of a horse or two. The 
road was only the native trail, winding up the various palis on the way. 
There were no bridges in these islands until after 1840. We emerged from 
Moanalua valley a quarter mile above the present road, fording the fish pond 
beyond Iwilei, and wading through the mud flats near the present Eailway 
wharves. Every two or three months Mr. Emerson would call at our house 



46 

on his way to town. Eev. Lowell Smith, was also a frequent guest, loving to 
visit his old parish, and helping to inspire the people in spiritual things. He 
was an alert and genial missionary, very singleminded and full of zeal. In 
riding, he always wore a thin black claw-hammer coat, with the skirts 
carefully pinned forward to keep them from contact with the back of the 
horse. Those old Ewa missionaries would have marveled could they have had 
a vision of present conditions, with swift railway trains sweeping through 
the country, vast cane fields intersected by rail-tracks and huge irrigation 
pipes climbing the uplands from the immense steam pumps. My father, who 
died in 1872, never saw a railway, nor even a large steamer. During half a 
century his only trip abroad was on a missionary errand to the Marquesas. 

PEARL OYSTERS AND CLAMS. 

The lochs or lagoons of Pearl Eiver were not then as shoal as now. The 
subsequent occupation of the uplands by cattle denuded the country of herb- 
age and caused vast quantities of earth to be washed down by storms into 
the lagoons, shoaling the water for a long distance seaward. No doubt the 
area of deep water and anchorage has been greatly diminished. In the thirties 
the small pearl oyster was quite abundant, and common on our table. Small 
pearls were frequently found in them. No doubt the copious inflow of fresh 
water favored their presence. I think they have become almost entirely ex- 
tinct, drowned out by the mud. There was also at Pearl Eiver a handsome 
speckled clam, of delicate flavor, which contained milk white pearls of ex- 
quisite luster, and perfectly spherical. I think that clam is still found in the 
Ewa lochs. 

A VISITATION OF SMALLPOX. 

But the greatest change in Ewa is in the almost extinction of the native 
population. Some 4,000 Asiatic laborers have taken their places, and few 
Hawaiians are to be seen. The few who remain have abundant means, renting 
their lands to the industrious Chinese. The greatest destruction of Hawaiian 
population took place in the summer of 1853, by an invasion of small-pox. 
This broke out in Honolulu. Eev. A. Bishop immediately procured a supply 
of vaccine matter, which proved to be spurious. He then proceeded to inocu- 
late the people with small-pox, thus saving hundreds of lives, and himself 
coming down with varioloid, having formerly been vaccinated. But more than 
half of the population of Ewa perished in a few weeks. The earliest cases 
were pathetic. A young woman in Kalauao was visiting in Honolulu, and con- 
tracted the malady. She hastened home in terror and summoned her friends 
and kindred from all the villages of Ewa to bid her farewell. They all 
came and kissed her, then returned to their homes and all died. The young 
woman herself recovered. 

The population of the other islands were nearly all saved by means of 
thorough vaccination before the pestilence had time to spread, athough about 
eighty died at Lahaina before they could be protected. I was then living 
there. At that time no one had thought of objecting to vaccination. 

I think that at Ewa, we saw much less of the higher class of chiefs than 



47 

while living at Kailua. Their residence was at Lahaina, or at Honolulu, 
where I seldom saw them. I do not remember ever in my childhood to have 
seen Kauikeaouli (King Kamehameha III) or his sister Nahienaena, both of 
whom I often heard mentioned. There was one chief whose face was 
familiar, named Kealiiahonui who was conspicuous for his stature and per- 
sonal beauty. He was brought to Honolulu in 1823 by the then tyrannical 
Eegent Kaahumanu, who took him and his father, King Kaumualii of Kauai 
as her joint husbands. At her conversion in 1825, she put away her younger 
husband. I was also familiar with the person of Auhea Kekauluohi, the mother 
of King Lunalilo. 

HOW ROYALTY TRAVELED. 

The Premier Kinau, half sister of the King, I often saw. On one memor- 
able occasion, she and her husband, the redoutable Governor Kekuanaoa, 
visited Waiawa where we lived. They had been making a sort of royal 
progress around the island, and were travelling in great state. They had 
come through that day twenty miles from Waialua, and were received by the 
Konohiki and people under a great lanai covered with cocoanut leaves, where 
they sat upon the large sofa on which they traveled. This sofa was mounted 
upon an immense platform composed of long poles crossing each other in such 
a manner that fifty men at once could lift and trot off with their royal load. 
The mission family went up and paid our respects in company with the 
principle people of the district. 

There was a great gathering of people both those of Ewa, and those who 
accompanied the chiefs from Waialua. Our people prostrated themselves 
and crawled up into the royal presence. 

The head man of Waialua was quite conspicuous in active attendance on 
the great personages, and was got up in superior costume. Our own head 
man Kanepaiki seemed to be absent, until I at last espied him squatting at 
some distance among the common natives, dressed in an old dirty shirt and 
malo. Expressing my surprise, my father explained that the high chiefs 
would think much more of him for his humility than of the ostentatious 
gentleman from Waialua. I had never seen Kanepaiki so poorly dressed. 
Possibly the fact of Kinau being owner of Ewa made some difference, relegat- 
ing him to the position of a mere servant, whereas the Waialua man had 
been acting as entertainer. 

ARRESTING A PRINCE. 

Kinau was a tall and portly chiefess, weighing from 250 to 300 pounds. 

Her features were coarse and unattractive, yet not forbidding. She then 
had three sons and a daughter. Two of the sons became the Kings Kameha- 
meha IV and V. An older son Moses, died in youth, after having developed 
a violent and uncontrollable nature, of which I once witnessed a sample in 
his childhood. We were embarking for Kauai early in 1839 in company with 
Mr. and Mrs. Amos F. Cooke and the old governor of Kauai, Kaikioewa, who 
was the official Kahu, or guardian of little Prince Moses. The youngster had 
made up his mind to go with his guardian. He came down to Bobinsons* 



48 

wharf where we were about to set sail, and laid hold of the side of the brig, 
yelling and howling. His guardian all the time continued to dissuade and 
expostulate. No one dared to use force upon the furious child. This con- 
tinued for more than two hours, until nearly night. Finally his father, the 
governor Kekuanaoa, sent down a file of soldiers with orders to arrest and 
convey the little prince home to the palace near by. This released us from 
further detention, and we set sail. It was a tiresome, but very curious ex- 
perience. To Mr. and Mrs. Cooke it was doubtless an instructive experience, 
since about a year later, as I think, they were placed in charge of the 
"Boyal School " for the children of the chiefs, over whom they maintained 
a family rule of gentle but firm discipline, to which the little princes had 
been strangers. 

A ROYAL LUAU. 

To revert to the royal visit at Waiawa, several days had been previously 
occupied in preparing food for the entertainment of the chiefs and their 
great retinue, taxing all the resources of the people. Probably the food was 
taken from the patches, always the best ones, which were set apart for the 
use of the Landlord, and cultivated by the weekly labor of all the natives. 
Not far inland from our house were dug three immense "inm" ovens. These 
were deep and broad pits, holding twenty or thirty barrels each of taro. One 
or two cords of wood were piled in each pit and covered with lava stones 
perhaps two feet deep. The burning of the wood brought most of the 
stones to no more than red heat. When the wood was consumed the hot 
stones were leveled and the taro piled upon them together with sweet pota- 
toes, and large hogs wrapped in banana leaves. The interiors of the hogs 
were first filled with red hot stones, as well as cavities opened between the 
shoulder blades and ribs. Other meats were added, such as goats fowls and 
fish, the smaller being wrapped in ti-leaves. 

As soon as the piles of vegetables and meats were suitably laid up in 
the pits, the whole mass was covered deeply with fresh grass and rushes. The 
earth dug from the pits was then piled upon the grass, covering it deeply, 
but leaving a small opening on the summit of the mound. Into this was 
suddenly poured water to the amount of three or four barrels. The earth 
was instantly piled into the opening, sealing in the violently escaping 
steam generated by the red-hot stones. The ovens were then left to "stew 
in their own juice" for several hours. On opening, the contents were found 
to be most thoroughly cooked by the steam. The meats were peculiarly sav- 
ory. Probably there is no more satisfactory plain cooking in the world, nor 
any performed with greater economy of fuel than in the Hawaiian Imu. 
A heavy task remained to clean the taro and pound it into poi. Much 
of the taro next to the stones had become baked into a tough but savory 
crust. I believe that the New England ' l clam-bakes ' ' are cooked in a similar 
manner, with drift wood in pits in the sand of the beaches. 




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49 

SILK AND SUGAR PRODUCTION. 

Our visit to Kauai on the occasion mentioned above, extended from Koloa 
to Hanalei. Koloa was occupied by Mr. Gulick, Hanalei by Messrs. Alexander 
and Johnson. Mr. Gulick lived in a large thatched cottage of native style. 
Of special interest at Koloa was a silk farm conducted by Mr. Titeomb who 
had a few acres of Multicaulis mulberry which were very flourishing. He had 
also a considerable quantity of silk- worms, which had to be fed on fresh mul- 
berry leaves. We saw the worms making cocoons, and the various processes 
of reeling the silk from the cocoons into beautiful and glossy skeins. That 
plantation failed, doubtless in part from lack of reliable skilled labor. 

There was also a little sugar plantation at Koloa, managed by Mr. Hooper, 
who was a partner of William Ladd and P. A. Brinsmade, merchants of 
Honolulu. The crop could not have exceeded one or two hundred tons. The 
mill had small iron rollers, driven by water-power. The boiling train was 
composed of rather flat pans. The syrup was crystallized in large jars like 
conical flower-pots, with a hole at the apex, corked with cane-bagasse, which 
when opened, allowed the molasses to drain out. A large pile of sugar 
gathered from such pots awaited transportation. I gratefully remember a 
generous hunk of the brown crystals graciously bestowed on myself by Mr. 
Hooper, who must have been a good sort of man. I think that sugar plan- 
tation generally brought some profit to its owners, and had a history con- 
tinuous with the modern and very profitable Koloa Plantation. It was the 
earliest manufactory of sugar in these Islands. At the time of our visit, 
the native labor was hired at twelve and a half cents a day, payable in coarse 
cotton cloth at twenty five cents a yard. The natives were eager for the 
wages, never before having earned any. No coin was used, only token-money. 

A VISIT AROUND KAUAI. 

Mr. Gulick raised colts, and his numerous boys all became expert horse- 
men. The oldest, Halsey, was then eleven years old, a boy of great bright- 
ness and loveableness. Very interesting was a business training for his 
boys, instituted by Mr. Gulick, who made money tokens of his own, with 
which the boys traded with him and each other. This cultivated in them 
ideas of property value, and of traffic, which were serviceable throughout life. 
Orramel, the second boy, was then an alert lad of nine, old enough to be a 
playmate. Five brothers of this family became remarkable as a peculiarly 
active and successful set of foreign missionaries. All still surviving ex- 
cept Halsev- 

Mounted on good ponies by the kindness of Mr. Gulick we made a two 
days ride to Hanalei. I remember that Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Knapp were in 
our party. Mr. Knapp was a brother of a lady who came to Kauai a few 
years later Mrs. Dr. J. W. Smith of Koloa. I remember that he was very 
neat in his dress and wore gloves when riding. Mrs. Knapp afterwards be- 
came the stepmother of Sanford B. Dole, a lady of very calm and quiet 
efficiency. The ride was a delightful one through a rarely beautiful coun- 
try. At the last descent into the splendid Hanalei valley messengers from 



50 

Mr. Alexander met us with a large bucket of cow's milk, which. I was 
thirsty enough to drink, although rather disliking its flavor, being used only 
to goat's milk. The Bishops found hospitable quarters with the then young 
Alexanders, who had a comfortable stone house. They had three little boys, 
the oldest now my honored friend and "puluna" of the Coast Survey, and 
the youngest the genial sugar-king, Sam. 

ENTERTAINED BY ROYALTY. 

We had a canoe ride up the beautiful river. The great green mountain 
towering over the rear of the valley, made a lasting impression. I have not 
since seen the place in 62 years. We returned the following week as far as 
Lihue. There were one or two deep streams to cross in canoes, swimming 
the horses. At Wailua, we were entertained with very warm hospitality by 
the Ex-queen Debora Tapule who had formed a great affection for my own 
mother in Waimea in 1824. On leaving she gave us a large package of 
choice tapas and fine Niihau mats. She lived in a very large thatched cot- 
tage with a most clean and comfortable interior. Beaching the little bay 
near Lihue, we spent there some thirty-six hours. It was long before the days 
of sugar plantations and cattle ranches. The natives were numerous and 
the only inhabitants. A schooner bore us speedily to Honolulu with a fair 
wind, which was unusual in sailing "to windward." 

SOCIAL HONOLULU IN THE THIRTIES. 

While at Ewa we increased our acquaintance with the few white families 
residing in Honolulu not of the Mission. Mrs. Charlton and Mrs. Taylor 
have already been spoken of. We were once at dinner at the house of a 
Mrs. Capt. Hinkley, and repeatedly at that of Mrs. Capt. Carter, a most 
sociable and active lady, whose many descendants have greatly prospered 
here. We had much acquaintance with the families of Messrs. Ladd and 
Brinsmade, who had some church connection with us unlike most of the 
foreign residents. We saw much of the sister of Dr. Wood who married 
Capt. Little, and after his loss at sea, became Mrs. Hooper a very lively 
and agreeable woman. I remember being at the house of Mrs. Corney, whose 
two aged daughters still reside in Honolulu. There were several prominent 
white men, whose faces were familiar, Consul Jones, old Mr. Eeynolds and 
old Mr. Pitman, James Jackson Jarvis himself, barely of age, brought his 
girl-bride fresh from America, to our house and spent a fortnight in a very 
jolly honeymoon time. Jarves afterwards edited "The Polynesian," wrote 
Hawaiian History, and became prominent in the literature of Art. 

Mrs. Captain Dominis one afternoon made her appearance in a boat on 
the creek near our house, bringing her little son and made us a very agree- 
able visit. The better class of whites in Honolulu in the thirties were wont 
to gather on Sunday mornings at the Seamen's Bethel, where Chaplain Diell 
held public worship. A number of half -white youths also attended, some of 
them pupils of Mr. Andrew Johnstone, who taught the "Charity School." 
Of course our intimacies were with the circle of missionary families. Of 
these were the Binghams and Dr. Judd's genial household, the very kind and 



51 

hospitable Chamberlains, the families of Messrs. E. O. Hall and Henry Dimond, 
who had charge of the Printing and Binding departments, and after 1837 
the families of S. N. Castle and A. F. Cooke. The Lowell Smiths have al- 
ready been named. Besides these, the families of Eev. Ephraim Clark and 
Eev. Eeuben Tinker were intermittently resident in Honolulu. Altogether it 
was a large circle of warm hearted and enthusiastic missionaries, bound to- 
gether by the warmest of united activity and purpose. 

THE STRONG- MAN OF THE MISSION. 

Of this mission circle Mr. and Mrs. Bingham held a certain leadership, by 
virtue of longer experience, and of some superiority of intellect and capacity. 
All looked up to Mr. Bingham, as the strongest man of the mission, and a 
leader. He possessed much calmness and courtesy of manner. The highest 
testimony to the mental and moral qualities of Mr. and Mrs. Bingham was 
in the immense personal influence which they acquired over the minds and 
hearts of the leading royal chiefs. This ascendancy made him extremely 
obnoxious to the majority of the foreigners, who detested moral restric- 
tions. As a child I always held him in high honor and regard, with much 
liking, mingled with a little awe. There was another missionary couple on 
Oahu whom we often met, and of whom I have the pleasantest memories 
the Eev. B. W. Parker and wife of Kaneohe. Mrs. Parker, now in her 
nineties, is the only white survivor of the adult residents of Honolulu in 1836 
when we came here. 

PERSECUTION OP THE CATHOLICS. 

My father was of habitually even temper. One of the very few occasions 
when I ever saw him betray angry excitement, was in 1836, when we saw 
passing opposite our house at Ewa on the public road one morning, a company 
of perhaps forty Catholic natives, who were being led over from Waianae to 
Honolulu under guard to receive at the capital sentence to labor on the roads 
for their crime of worshipping images, contrary to the royal statutes. 
The good missionary was grieved to the heart, and deeply roused, to see men 
and women in his parish suffering ignominious punishment for the practise 
of their religion, even though he believed them to be sadly misguided. He 
immediately mounted his horse and rode to Honolulu to expostulate with 
Kinau and Kekuanaoa. His remonstrances, however, were ineffectual. The 
native rulers had adopted a determined policy of suppressing by force what 
they deemed to be real idol-worship, forbidden in the second Commandment. 
I cannot personally testify that all the Protestant missionaries were equally 
opposed to that persecuting policy, although I suppose that they were so. 
This arbitrary course of the chiefs was put to an end in the following year 
by the visit of a French warship. 

VISITING MISSIONARIES. 

Among the interesting incidents of the three and a half years of my boy- 
hood spent at Ewa, was a series of visits from a large party of Methodist mis- 
sionaries on their way to labor among the Oregon Indians. They had come 



52 

around Cape Horn as far as Honolulu, and were detained here seeking passage 
to the Columbia and Willamette rivers. This may have been in 1838. Many 
of them sojourned with us at Waiawa for more or less time. Two quite 
pretty and lively young ladies are remembered, who were on their way to marry 
missionaries already on the ground. There was also a maturer and most agree- 
able lady, Miss Pitman, who was to marry a leading missionary in Oregon. 
A Dr. White, I think, was at the head of the party. I believe that several 
of these good people helped to make important early history in Oregon. 

I think that none of the Oregon missionaries of the American Board came 
out by this route, nor were their names familiar. An exploring pioneer, the 
Rev. Samuel Parker, spent some time among us, on his way home, and is well 
remembered. The name of their station, Walla Walla, was familiar. At that 
time Hawaii had some commercial intercourse with the Columbia Eiver, or 
' < Keomolewa ,, as our natives called it. Some "spruce" lumber was imported 
thence. My first taste of an apple was one from Oregon in 1839. My father 
was enthusiastic in once more tasting the familiar fruit of his boyhood after 
seventeen years. I did not relish it. Landing in Newport, R. I., in May, 1840, 
from a six months' voyage in a whaler around the Horn, I eagerly invested 
three cents in four russet apples. After biting into two of them, I threw the 
whole over a fence. But I had been for several weeks luxuriating upon luscious 
oranges bought in Pernambuco for twenty-five cents a hundred. However, I 
failed to appreciate the finest apples, peaches, or plums until the long sharp 
cold of winter. I longed for sugar cane, bananas, and melons. By February 
apples began to taste good. 

MISSIONARY REINFORCEMENT OP 1837. 

To my own mind, the most exciting event that Ewa period, was the 
arrival in May, 1837, of the "Mary Frazier, with a great reinforcement 
of new missionaries. There was a company of thirty-four persons, including 
five ordained men, nine teachers, one physician, and one circular agent, 
with their wives, besides two single ladies. Five of those families, Bailey, 
Castle, Cooke, Johnson and Wilcox, became permanently identified with these 
Islands. The others had all left in less than twenty years except Miss 
Lucia Smith, who became the second wife of Eev. Lorenzo Lyons. The vener- 
able Edward Bailey, who was the youngest man of the company, is their sole 
survivor, at the age of eighty-seven. Such a large and strong accession to our 
already most successful but much overworked mission, was a cause of the 
greatest gratification and excitement. The assignment of these new people to 
their various stations much prolonged the work of the General Meeting of 1837. 
Of the five ordained, men, none proved to be of more than average ability, 
except the Rev. Thomas Laf on, M. D., who had great natural force of mind and 
character. 

AN ANTI-SLAVERY ENTHUSIAST. 

He was a product of great Revival and Anti-Slavery movements of those 
days and had himself set free his inherited slaves. Dr. Lafon was an en- 
thusiast in anti-slavery matters. He found much fault with our old mis- 



53 

sionaries for not paying fixed wages to their ohuas, or servants. He de- 
nounced it as a form of slavery. My parents felt that to be unreasonable, as 
our servants were envied by all the common people for their advantages and 
coveted positions. The zealous Doctor's expostulations so prevailed, however, 
that from that time on, the missionaries paid their servants fixed wages. It 
is probable that Dr. Lafon 's zeal for freedom may have somewhat contributed 
to hasten the emancipation of the Hawaiian makaainanas from serfdom, and 
their endowment with their kuleana allotments in fee simple a few years later. 
Dr. Lafon returned to America in four or five years, afterwards becoming 
eminent as a very benevolent medical practitioner. Among the fruits of his 
strenuous influence here was the strong opposition which he enlisted among our 
missionaries against the compromising attitude of the American Board towards 
what the Abolitions denounced as the "hellish sin of slavery. " In the course 
of a few years this led to the withdrawal from their connection with the Board, 
of the Eevs. Eeuben Tinker, and J. S. Green, and of Dr. Lafon himself, all of 
them among our best missionaries. They felt unable longer to receive pecuniary 
support from a Board so implicated with the sin of slavery. Only Mr. Green 
found means to maintain himself in the field; the other two good men left the 
Islands. The consciences of the rest of the missionaries failed to be awakened 
upon the subject enough to make them abandon their work. 

THE GREAT REVIVAL. 

I here pass on to record what I can recall of the greatest events of those 
days, and one that did more than any other to give permanent shape to the 
subsequent history of Hawaii. That was the intense and pervading Eeligious 
Awakening of the years 1838 and 1839. To enter very deeply into the tremen- 
dous tide of feeling which enveloped and uplifted the whole nation for many 
months, was not possible at my age of eleven, with my nearly entire ignorance 
of the native language. There was a great multiplication of religious meetings, 
attended by enormous congregations. Our great church on the hill would hold 
one thousand people, with four hundred more standing in the encircling veran- 
dahs. It finally became necessary to cover the north side of the church yard 
with a lanai, which would seat six thousand people. On several occasions this 
space was well filled, the preacher standing near the church door, so as to be 
heard by those sitting inside of the church. 

One Sunday morning, before the removal to out-doors, an impression still 
vivid was made on my mind by a strange intensity of tone, and exaltation of 
feeling in my father in his pulpit. Ordinarily he had no forcible eloquence, his 
usual manner being rather mild and colloquial. On this occasion, he was entirely 
carried out of himself, and spoke in an impassioned strain of intense fervor, 
finally calling out in a strange thrilling tone to the crowd of sensual sinners be- 
fore him, "U'oki! u'oki!" (Stop! stop!) I have always felt that he was for 
the time a veritable prophet, uplifted above his human capacity by a super- 
natural inspiration. I have many times afterwards witnessed such a Divine 
afflatus taking possession of preachers in times of Eevival, when the Holy Spirit 
was present in great power. At similar times it has been my own experience to 
be in the same way uplifted quite out of my usually inefficient delivery, and 



54 

to be swept forward upon a Divine tide which, seized upon hearers and preacher 
alike. The supernatural and divine character of the phenomenon is matter of 
personal conviction and certainty. 

A NATIONAL PENTECOST. 

During those marvellous months, that strange and wonderful mental and 
spiritual uplift pervaded the whole Hawaiian nation to its remotest extremities. 
Every missionary experienced it in his own field and his own spirit. The revival 
spread like a fire from island to island, enveloping the whole people. It was a 
veritable national Pentecost, in which hundreds and thousands every week were 
converted to Christ, with intense manifestations of feeling. In my father's 
great congregations, such emotional excitement was not attended by any out- 
cries or noisy expression, but there was much weeping, as I recollect it. As I 
recall those days, I do not seem to have participated in the popular excitement, 
except as a much interested childish spectator. My mother seemed much trou- 
bled about my tl hardness of heart/' which was mere juvenile incapacity. Four 
years later in Rochester, I became intensely wrought upon under the preaching 
of Finney. 

A very notable incident of those days was my father's administration of 
baptism to four hundred converts on one Sabbath morning, the ordinance occupy- 
ing two hours ' time. Each person received a Christian baptismal name, attended 
by the application of water to the forehead. There had been a thorough preli- 
minary organization of the four hundred people into groups of ten or twelve 
each. Each group was in charge of a luna, who held a list of their names in 
the order in which they sat. These forty groups occupied a large space in the 
great lanai. The pastor moved among them with an attendant deacon carrying 
the font, a sponge being in the minister's hand. When he approached a group, 
they knelt down before him. Taking the prepared list, he named them in suc- 
cession, applying the wet sponge to the forehead of each person when named, 
thus: "John, Zebedee, Martha, Timothy, Dorcas, etc., I baptize you all (oukou 
apau) into the name, etc." Generally each convert had selected a Bible name 
for himself, the pastor correcting any injudicious choice, such as Iscariot, or 
Herodias, or Beelzebub. 

BAPTIZING WITH A BRUSH. 

The ordinance was deeply impressive, and was witnessed by six thousand 
people from Waianae and Ewa. In his parish of Hilo, the Eev. Titus Coan used 
much less ceremony in administering baptism to over five thousand persons in 
one year, and to twelve hundred at a single service. He sprinkled each group 
with a brush as a whole, without calling off their individual names. It might 
have been impossible to reach the whole twelve hundred by any other method. 
How the twelve apostles and their helpers baptized three thousand disciples 
on the day of Pentecost we are not told. After witnessing that two hours' 
sprinkling of four hundred, I hope my Baptist brethren will exercise charity to- 
wards some incredulity on my part about the three thousand Jews having been 
immersed in one day. To have immersed his four hundred would probably 
have exceeded any of my father's fairly good organizing capacity, without some 



55 

sacrifice of decorum, such as making them dive off a bank, a score at a time. 
How Peter managed it, if not by sprinkling, must be guessed at, subject to rea- 
sonable limitations of propriety. It would seem as if the method of applying 
the water of baptism must allow of much latitude. 

It had always been the practice of the missionaries in Hawaii to enforce a 
probation of six months upon' candidates for membership in the Church, before 
their admission by the rite of Baptism. During that probation, they were known 
as "poe Hooikaika, " or strivers. Usually many of them would fail to stand 
fast through the six months without lapsing into the prevailing sin of unchastity. 
During this Awakening my father, like most of his brethren, did not deviate 
from the old rule as to probation. I believe that Mr. Coan and Mr. Lyons bap- 
tized their converts very promptly, and experienced much falling away in conse- 
quence. The records show that those two ardent souls baptized as many con- 
verts as all the rest of the missionaries together. For a whole generation those 
two churches of Hilo and Waimea held precedence among the Hawaiian churches 
in strength and activity. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF TITUS COAN. 

From the time of his entrance in 1835 upon missionary labor in Hawaii, Titus 
Coan had shown exceptional spiritual fervor, combined with a rarely winning 
manner. He would anywhere have proved an evangelist or revivalist of unusual 
force. When he first arrived at Honolulu in 1835, he held meetings with us chil- 
dren of the older missionaries, which are recalled as very moving and winning. 
"We youngsters used to hang upon Mr. Coan's words, and formed a deep personal 
attachment to the new missionary. Three of the older ones made public pro- 
fession of religion in 1836, in consequence. I later became aware how the 
rugged old Calvinistic theology had served to impede my natural spiritual de- 
velopment, and to discourage a free childlike taking hold upon the lovely and 
gracious Divine Power. But the fault lay in the strenuous and ungracious home 
teaching, and 'not in Mr. Coan's attractive invitations. 

LIBERALIZING EFFECT OF THE REVIVAL. 

I think that the older pioneers of our Mission had but limited experience, 
if any, of the intense Eevival activity which so roused and multiplied the 
American churches between 1825 and 1845. Those devoted and faithful fathers, 
however, laid deep fountains. In their second decade there came to them, bring- 
ing fresh spiritual fire from the great Finney revivals, such men as Lorenzo 
Lyons, Sheldon Dibble, Reuben Tinker, Lowell Smith and Titus Coan, men who 
abounded in the divine afflatus, and spoke straight to the hearts of the already 
listening heathen. Thus, from diligent early seed-sowing, and later divine water- 
ing, burst forth the great Awakening of Hawaii, which revolutionized the life 
and thought of the old sluggish, sensual, childish heathen race, and lifted them 
all, people and chiefs, up to a new and exalted plane of hope and purpose. It 
was this spiritual revolution of the Hawaiians, which made not only possible, 
but inevitable, the immediately following political evolution, in which the serfs 
were freed and endowed with lands, just laws were enacted, Royal power lim- 



56 

ited by a liberal Constitution, and Eepresentative Government established. All 
this was accomplished by the cordial cooperation of Monarch and Chiefs, within 
less than ten years after the great Eevival. That was the turning point in 
Hawaiian history. Having been effectually Christianized by their great Pente- 
cost, and imbued with pervading and reverent moral sentiment, the Hawaiian 
spontaneously proceeded to seek organization under civilized law and order. The 
great religious Awakening of 1838-9 was thus the decisive shaping of Hawaiian 
political life. It rendered Hawaii thence forward the bright center of Christian 
Civilization in the Mid-Pacific. That Civilization had a vitality and strength 
that surmounted the efforts of later degraded monarchs to resuscitate the old 
heathen idolatry and despotism. 

THE MISSION "GENERAL MEETINGS." 

In closing these reminiscences of my days of childhood, mention needs to 
be made of the remarkable concentration of spiritual force which I witnessed in 
the "General Meetings," which were held yearly in Honolulu, to which all the 
Mission families gathered. Their daily sessions were held during from four to 
six weeks of each year in the old school house, which still stands in the rear 
of Kawaiahao church. Often some forty or more of the missionaries besides 
their wives were present, as well as many of the older children. As a boy I 
was often present in those meetings, with deep interest in many of the discus- 
sions. Much business was transacted relating to the multifarious work and 
business of the Mission. New missionaries were to be located, and older ones 
transferred. Expenditures upon schools, printing, dwellings, etc., were decided 
upon. Assignments of work were made in translating, revising and writing 
books. Annual reports of the American Board were agreed upon, including ad- 
vice upon changes of policy and management. 

FRATERNAL SPIRIT OF MISSIONARIES. 

While serious differences of opinion would arise, and warmth of discussion 
occasionally appear, I think it never grew to bitterness. There always prevailed 
a spirit not only of forbearance and harmony, but of very warm fraternal affec- 
tion. Such is my recollection of what I heard and saw. The general impression 
continues very deep upon my memory, of a lofty and profound spiritual enthus- 
iasm which pervaded all the conference and counsellings of this noble band. 
They were ardent believers in the conversion of the heathen to Christ. They 
felt a great courage in witnessing the wonderful work going on in their churches. 
They had a very fervent faith in a coming triumph of the Gospel in all heathen 
lands. The business of their Lord and His Gospel stood supreme in all their 
thoughts. In the expectation of His victory they were hopeful, joyful, ardent 
and fervent in spirit. 

That old school house witnessed many rare hours and days of most con- 
secrated and blessed conference, which deeply stirred even our childish minds 
and spirits. Memory has doubtless retained chiefly what was best and highest. 
It is remembered as a living realization of the hymn: 



57 

"To each the soul of each how dear; 
What tender love, what holy fear! 

Their ardent prayers together rise, 
Like mingling flames in sacrifice." 

In November, 1839, at the age of nearly thirteen, I left this scene of high 
missionary activity, to embark on the whaler "William Lee/' for a voyage of 
six months to United States, where I remained twelve years, taking College and 
Seminary courses, and returning again around the Cape to Honolulu with my wife 
after more than thirteen years' absence. We hope to celebrate our golden wed- 
ding ten months hence. 



Memories of Old Honolulu 

"When I returned to Honolulu in 1853, after an absence of thirteen years, 
I was struck by the many changes. 

"Primarily civilization had advanced among the native Hawaiian people. 
They were then generally clothed, which they were not when I went away. 

"The major portion of the residents of Honolulu, however, still lived in 
thatched houses. In fact, the town was almost entirely composed of this kind of 
dwellings,, 

' ' One of the greatest changes was in the cutting through of the roads. Nuu- 
anu avenue had been opened its entire length and Fort street had been opened 
as a driveway. These had not previously been open. 

"When I went away there were only the Punchbowl road, Beretania street, 
King street and Merchant street. This was the condition of the city in 1840. 

PASSING OF THE FORT. 

"Another great change was the disappearance of the old fort, from which 
the street takes its name. This old fort stood where the Hackfeld building now 
stands, the site being, of course, larger. 

"The esplanade which has for so long been the seat of much business was 
not thendn existence. The land then ceased considerably above the point where 
the Customs House now stands. 

"All Government business was then conducted in the old building which 
no<v stands just waikiki of the postoffice. The various offices were there, and I 
remember well seeing as clerks in the finance office under Dr. Judd, Warren 
Goodale and Asa Thurston, fathers respectively of William Goodale of Waialua 
plantation and L. A. Thurston. Charles E. Bishop was then in the Customs 
House as collector. 

CITY LIMITS IN 1853. 

"The setlled portion of the city was then substantially limited by the pres- 
ent Alapai and River streets and mauka at School street. There was hardly 
anything outside of those limits and the remainder was practically an open plain. 

"Above Beretania street, on the slopes and beyond Alapai street, there was 
hardly a building of any nature whatever. 

"At that time there was a small boarding school for the children of the 
missions at Punahou, under direction of Father Dole. This little structure alone 
intervened between the city and Moiliili, where about the church there were a 
fe.v houses. These were all of the native thatched kind and were inhabited by 
the native people. 

"The plains remained open until within twenty-five years, before there was 
any building there of any description. 

"Another feature which was noticeable was the absence of a variety of 
foliage. The almost universal algaroba tree was then only to be found in the 
gardens and yards, as it was a new comer and had not begun to spread. There 
were few trees and the palms were not in great variety at that time. 

"We came down in the largest sailing ship of that day, the Sovereign of 
the Seas, arriving here in January, 1853. 



59 

SHIP TOWING IN 1853. 

"The ship was towed into the harbor by a long line of native people who 
grasped the hawser and walked along the reef. It was after this that oxen were 
substituted for the purpose of bringing in ships. 

"There was a path along the reef which bound the entrance, which, is a uat- 
ural break in the outer reef, and along this the men and oxen walked in pulling 
in a ship, marching through the water. 

"Inside the harbor we found probably 100 whaling ships of from 300 to 500 
tons. These had come in with oil and were waiting to reship. Our big ship was 
soon surrounded by the whalers, two on each side, which, began at once to trans- 
fer into her the barrels of oil for shipment to New York. 

BASIS OF BUSINESS IN 1853. 

"The main business here then was the dealing with the whaling fleet, of 
which there were not less than 250 ships which were in the habit of calling at 
Honolulu, Lahaina and Hilo, generally twice during a year. Their summer 
months they spent in the Okhotsk and Bearing seas and in the Arctic ocean, 
taking the right whales which then were abundant in those seas. In the winter 
they went south or to Japan. This gave them a chance to make the year very 
full, for they left their oil here for reshipment and thus with refitting were en- 
abled to put in almost the entire season at sea. 

TYPE OP ARCHITECTURE. 

"There were very few structures of the American or European styles of 
architecture or building. There were a few houses of wood and stone, the latter 
predominating. There were several fairly commodious and handsome buildings 
occupied by the well-to-do merchants. Now there are scarcely any traces of the 
old buildings which were then accounted so good. 

"I can remember only one historical building, that being the main room 
formerly occupied by Hackfeld & Co., at the rear of their new building. That 
was at that time the Legislative and Judiciary building. 

"Kawaiahao church wa3 then much in the same condition as now. 

"On the site of the lately destroyed Kaumakapili church there was a 
structure of adobe and thatch. 

"The present Catholic Cathedral was then in existence. But, as I said, the 
major portion of the dwellings of the city were the thatched ones of the native 
people. 

NATIVES IN MAJORITY. 

"The native population formed the great body of the population then seen 
upon the streets. They were always moving about and at work. They bore bur- 
dens upon the Hawaiian yoke, or mamake, which with its load at both ends, 
very much resembled the method of carrying which is followed by the Chinese 
at the present time. 

"The men at work generally wore shirts but nothing more in the way of 
apparel. 



60 

TRANSPORTATION WAS PRIMITIVE. 

' l At that time there was scarcely a wheeled vehicle in the city. Those which 
were to be seen were ox carts, with occasionally a hand cart. 

" Saddle horses were here in very small numbers. Thirteen years before 
when I left home there were no saddle horses, or practically none. When I re- 
turned I found that the few here were held very high, from $75 to $150 each. 
But the matter of horseback riding became such a craze that within ten years 
the prices of horses had fallen to from $10 to $50 each. In fact, in 1860 one 
could get a very fair riding horse for from $10 to $15. 

SUGAR AND BEEF SCARCE— WAGES LOW. 

"At the time of which I speak there were no large plantations or rancn^b. 
The cattle were just beginning to multiply upon Oahu, and beef was generally 
obtainable where ten years before it had been very scarce indeed. 

"At the time of which I am telling ycu the wages of the workmen of the 
country were very low. The rate of pay for a native worker was about 25 cents 
a day on the average. There were no Chinese in the country except a few trad- 
ers. There were, too, a few Lascars scattered about, but they were very few. 
They had come here as sailors, and had remained on the islands. There were 
also a few Cape Verde Portuguese, who had come here in whalers and liked the 
place. 

"The native people at this time had declined to about 80,000, but were the 
most conspicuous element of the population. 

"There were very few half -white people, as most of those who are so well 
known and remembered are of a later period. 

ROADS IN 1853. 

"The roads of the time were a great improvement upon those of the earlier 
days, bat were still very inferior to what they should have been. The principal 
ones were a horse trail, which led to the Pali, and Dr. Judd had extended and 
reconstructed that down the other side until there was a good horse trail con- 
necting the city with the various districts on the Koolau side of the island. 

"There was a very passable road down Ewa and Waianae way. 

"Once while making the trip down to Waialua, to which there was a good 
horse trail, I discovered that even at that early day the cattle had made great 
inroads into the forests of ti plants which had theretofore clad the foothills anu 
upland pasturages, even to the highest tracts. 

THE WAIKIKI ROAD. 

"There was probably a horse trail to Waikiki, out there were only a few 
houses of the native dwellers there. 

"The natives took to horseback riding with great facility and it is true 
that as the horses became cheap and everyone had his horse, the people gave up 
surf riding, as though their idea was to have rapid progress and they abandoned 
the older method for the newer one. The sport of surf riding was even disap- 
pearing when I returned, though some of the outlying islands had a great deal 
of it. 



61 

ANTI-MISSIONARIES. 

"The foreign community was when I returned much as it had been when 
last I was here. There were the two elements — the missioEary families and the 
white men who were engaged in business. There was still a great deal of feel- 
ing between the two elements, but it was abating, and finally almost entirely 
passed away. 

"There were a few of the older missionary families living here, making 
their headquarters about the Kawaiahao church sttlement, but once a year there 
was always a gathering here for the convocation in May, when the missionaries 
met in the old Kawaiahao school house, which stands still at the rear of the 
church. 

REASON FOR DIFFERENCES. 

"Perhaps the real reason for the differences which were then so startling 
were that the missionaris were engaged in endeavoring to reform the deeply de- 
graded morals of the Hawaiians, while the members of the other portion of the 
community were by no means seeking such an end. This created the greatest 
friction and there were constant clashes between the two classes, but the pres- 
ence in both of good women made it possible for time effectively to abate this 
friction. 

"When we returned we often saw the two young princes, afterward Kame- 
hameha IV and Kamehameha V, on the street. They were dressed with care and 
carried themselves with great dignity. The old missionaries had by no means 
lost their influence, and were still as a body full of activity.' * 



INDEX 

PAGE. PAGE. 

Adobe buildings, How made 42 Cooke, Rev. A. S., Data concerning. . .47, 48 

After-glow sunsets, Discovery of, cause of 10 Dole, Rev. Daniel 58 

Agricultural conditions in Hawaii, Early. 29 Education of Mission children 

Alexander, Rev. W. P., Data concern- 5, 20, 21, 30, 38, 40 

ing _ 49, 50 Education of natives, Difficulties of . . . .40, 41 

Anderson, Rev. Rufus, Description and Emerson, Rev. John S., Data concerning. 45 

character of 41 English, Difficulty of teaching natives .... 40 

Andrews, Rev. Lorrin, Data concerning. . 34 Ewa church, Building of 41 

Andrews, Dr., Data concerning 17 Ewa Mission premises described 42, 44 

Animals in Hawaii. See "Cattle," Ewa, Morals of, life in 43 

"Horses," "Pigs." Ewa, Removal of Bishop to . 41 

Anti-missionary foreigners, Data concern- Ewa, Weather at 31 

ing 27, 28, 29, 60 Past days, Method of keeping 23 

Anti-slavery movement in Hawaii 52, 53 Fire, Native method of making 27 

Bailey, Edward, Data concerning 41 Fishing, Native methods of 28 

Baldwin, Dwight, Data concerning 23 Flour, Condition of mission supply of... 16 

Bible, Translation of into Hawaiian 16 Food supply, Source and character of in 

Bingham, Rev. Hiram, Data concerning. 51 Hawaii 13, 14, 15, 16, 29, 44, 60 

Bishop, Rev. Artemas, Data concern- Forbes, Cochran, Data concerning 23 

ing 4, 30, 41, 43, 46, 51, 53, 54 Fort, Honolulu, Passing of 58 

Bishop, Mrs. Cornelia A. Sessions, Data > Friend, Bishop editor of 9 

concerning 6 Fruits and vegetables available 

Bishop, Mrs. Delia Stone, Data concern- 15, 16, 38, 39, 44 

-r. . ing ' V, ™- ' VIC ' 'mi ' * ' V * " f»" "* ' 4 G oats, Milk and meat supply of ..'....' . 16,' 43 

Bishop, Mrs. Elizabeth Edwards, Data Goat stealing, Penalty for 42 

concerning . 4 Government, Hawaiian, Effect of great 

Bishop Rings, Discoverer of, cause of... 10 revival on 55 

Bishop, S. E„ Trip to states, education Green, Rev. J.' S.,'l)ata concerning! I!!! ! 53 

and marriage of. 6, 57 Gulick M Data concerning . . . s 49 

Return to Hawaii, loca- Hanalei, Description of.... 50 

tion at bahama b Hawaiian . See "Natives," "Chiefs," "Gov- 

Removal to Hana 7 ernment " 

" Removal to Lahainaluna. 7 nji ,, . " -, . „ , „ . . nn 

Removal to Honolulu. . . 7 Heathenism, Revival of by Kalakaua. ... 22 



Exploration of West Maui 



Heathenism, Survival of 12 



■¥ rj Heiau of Puukohala, Data concerning. . . 24 

Work " as a ' surveyor ' and § ilo > , X isit T ■? ' *•" " i * ''■{.' 'a q ; ' Vk S 

land dealer 7 Honolulu, Life in, described 34, 35, 58 

" Theok>2V of 7 Honolulu society in the thirties described 50 

Interest of in social ' and Worses, U , s . e and. price of ... . 29, 60 

scientific questions.... 9-10 * d ° l worship Survival of, at Kailua 12 

it Editor of "Friend" 9 Hiter-island transportation described. 22, 31, 32 

Attitude toward 'over- ^ vis - Ja J? es Jackson, Data concerning. 50 

throw of Monarchy. . . 9 J T ol A n A so \ ReY f' . Da , ta concerning ■ ■ V 49 

Discoverer of cause of Ju <* d - I ?. r - Introduced Royal Palm to 

sunset after-glow and -tlawan . .................. b 

Bishop Rings 10 Kaahumanu, Hawaiian Chief, described. 36, 47 

<< Birthplace of . .'. ..'!! 22 Kaawaloa, Visit to and description of.. 22, 23 

" Reminiscences ' of' ' 'first Kailua church, Destruction and recon- 

published 3 struction of 21 

Recollections 'of by L.' A. Kailua, Description of. 12, 31, 37, 44 

Thurston 7 Kailua, Missionary visits to 25 

Boarding Schools, Missionary..'.!!!!.'!.' 41 Kalakaua, Revival of heathenism by 22 

Bridges, None in Hawaii until 1840 45 Kalakua, Hawaiian Chief, Data concern- 
Buildings; See "Mission' Buildings." in £ ^4 

Canoe, Travel by 18, 22, 28, 50 Kanepaiki, Hawaiian Chief, Description 

Catholics, Persecution of 51 of 43, 47 

Cattle, Source and supply of 16, 19, 39 Kapiolani, Data concerning 22 

Chamberlain, Mr., Data concerning 34 Kauai, A trip to, described 49 

Charlton, Richard, Described 35 Kaumakapili church, Building of 41, 59 

Chief, Character and arrest of a Ha- Kaumualii, Data concerning 47 

waiian 47 Kawaiahao church, Data concerning. . . 36, 59 

Chiefs, Hawaiian, Description and data Kekuanaoa, Trip of, around Oahu 47, 51 

concerning, Customs of Kekupuohe, Description of 25 

12, 13, 14, 18, 22, 25, Keliiahonui described 47 

26, 29, 30, 32, 34, 43, 47, 48, 50, 51, 56 Keoua, Data concerning 24 

Church, First stone in islands 33 Kilauea, Visit to, in 1836 25 

Church service in early days 36 Kinau, Trip of, around Oahu. 47, 51 

Clothing of missionaries 15 Knapp, H. O., Data concerning 49 

Clothing, Native 14, 30, 44, 47, 58, 59, 61 Koloa plantation, Data concerning 49 

Coan, Rev. Titus, Data concerning. 21, 54, 55 Kou trees, Cause of destruction of 37 

Common people. See "Natives.' Krakatoa, volcanic explosion 10 

Conscience, None west of Cape Horn. ... 28 Kuakini, Gov., Data concerning 

Cook, Capt., Native version of death of . . 26 12, 13, 21, 26, 30 



64 

PAGE. 



L "tnre* BrinSmade engaged in ««« "^ da ggden, Miss, Data concerning. . . . s "« 

£feaH Sr^:;^^- ::: H l£SH?l:w o£;: .-'.::ii;'va: it 

Lahaina church, First stone in islands 33 1853 Wa "* Com P° sltl °* of, in 

Lahaina, Status of, in the fifties 6 Postage and 'iwil ™^"a 60 

Lahaina, Trip to 7 31 32 qq Pntlt?^ ft? P ^ al methods 39 

Lahainaluna school, Bishop pVincip'af of ' 8 ? Revival Thl *TeS ' DescrinHn V ' . ' 'I' J 4 ' * 9 
Lamps, Native, described 27 of ! great, Description and effects 

& W, L E "uSn D oT C °^-^'.'.V4, 55 Eicharas/Eev! Wm.; -Fired' a{ 'at La^inl 4 ' =„ 

Mlk Ca Su n ' B Tv „f Pe0ple by mi ^'i»-aries:.. 16 goads, State of, in ifsT . ." 0ncerni ^ • • • |j» 

Mission, General meetings of 31 ge IS™ L m^I* ? ata . conce ™^ 41 

Mission servants. "See ''Wages.'"' ' ' ' ' §& P ?S&™ «J°&. rf • t ° Wmg in Honolulu - 59 

Missionaries, An error of . . . . 41 q ^7^ n Ka ? au \ , 49 

" a+,„«u -L V- 41 tein S in g, Inharmonious in earlv dav«s q« 

£2?.2 ° n A ^A 1 "? r^i 6 Smallpox, Epidemic of... J " " ' !« 

Duties and method of Me of Smith, Lowell, Data concerning.: ! .^i,* 41 46 

-K^Ar, i* 'r 16, o 17, »^' 50 ' 51 Sugar culture on Kauai. ' ' Iq 

Sunn^ 7 0f ' See F °° d gurf-riding and canoes. 7. .7.7.7. 18 60 

n Supply. T and making 1B > ™ 

Opponents of, types. . .27, 28, 29 Tapule, Deborah, Hawaiian Chief: i." .' .'.i | 50 

|fo y ne1r band/datV of arrival 1 "^ ^ ^ TlT^o ' « V« « 
Reinforcements of. 4, 36, 52 Thurston children,' Data concerning 19* |? 

Missionary children, Education a nd con- & ,*£, £g» ta^BST' ' JJ 

ditions of life , of, , m Ha- Tomatoes, Introduction of qq 

1 ^. an ' "i * • 5 V 1 ^' 20 ' 21 ' 38 ' 40 TooIs > Stone and steel 07 ?S 

ltdy "D'anf Setf |g ^"^ation in Honolulu 'in 18M.7. 2 . 7, 60 

lands Area of ?2 transportation, Inter-island, described.. 31, 32 

Skfiz 1™ : : : , ls * es s^sssr 5 gEf described - • • »? 

sTSu ' f umber ' pay and « v" Scarcit / of ' in Honoium::::::::: I J 

li^-^AttltBJa bishop toward over- 15 ^^ g^? £££«£ ^ 16 

Music, inharmonious in early days 30 Waiaiiia ' TV.™ +A ' liL'JLLU' ' J' ' 3 * 60 

Naihe, Hawaiian Chief, Description of 26 Waanae Mo?ak of T ?JI P - 10n ° f 45 

Native clothing. See "Clothing Native." Wa kfki road fr iS«U 43 

NatfhorseV/ch'aracter'of ' 13> ™' 44 ' g' gg ^ther^K^' ^T^' &t K ^«- ' ?J 

Native industries . 12, SS K h l%' and Ewa contrasted. . 31 

Natives, Poverty of common. ". \ \ \ \\ ^14, It ^^^^1^^^; ;;;;;; ^ ™ 



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